Roma account for almost one-tenth of the population in the Slovak Republic. They live mostly excluded from the general population in concentrated settlements, separated neighbourhoods or ghettos. The majority live in poverty and face social exclusion in almost all aspects of everyday life. Only a small share of Roma work, and a majority suffer from long spells of unemployment, their educational attainment is low, and a large number are illiterate. Social exclusion is further exacerbated by rising general animosity and mistrust between Roma and non-Roma groups. This calls for immediate policy action. The government should ensure easy access to all public services and provide additional support for the disadvantaged Roma communities. Individual policies should be effectively coordinated, because the problems that the Roma are facing are interconnected. A necessary precondition for successful Roma integration is the support of the general population. Policy interventions towards Roma integration should be accompanied by measures to eliminate the prejudices among parts of the majority population against their fellow citizens.

Heavy involvement in international trade and global value chains has been an effective way for promoting Slovakia's economic and social catch-up. Large foreign direct investment inflows have helped develop a competitive export-led manufacturing industry, with a strong specialisation in the automotive and electronics sectors, fostering robust growth and productivity performance with good fiscal and external balance results. However, the benefits of this development strategy have diminished since the 2008-09 crisis and the subsequent slowdown in world trade growth. Moreover, over the years Slovakia’s integration into world trade has remained for a large part based on downstream activities of value chains that incorporate little domestic value added, such as the assembly of imported intermediate goods, and further expansion of this growth model is hindered by employers’ increasing difficulties in finding skilled labour. There is a need to help local firms to better benefit from foreign companies’ know-how, further prepare the workforce for the increasing digitalisation and automation of most industries, promote the diversification of the economy and, in particular, strengthen the role of the services sector. This assessment, which is derived from the first part of this chapter, is followed by a discussion of the changes required to better leverage Slovakia’s experience with global value chains. All in all, a broad range of well-coordinated policies is called for. This entails better adapting the skills of the workforce to the changing needs of the labour market, enhancing the business environment, improving transport infrastructure and stimulating firms’ innovation capacity.