Signalling recovery, Slovakia’s industrial output grew by 13.4 per cent on an annual basis in October, little changed from the 13.5 per cent annual growth recorded in September, official data showed yesterday. Growth was fuelled by a 29.2 per cent rise in car output at plants run by Germany’s Volkswagen, France’s PSA Peugeot Citroen and South Korea’s KIA, which have been recovering from the global downturn since the beginning of the year. Electronics production at plants run by South Korea’s Samsung and Taiwan’s Foxconn, another engine of the Slovak economy, increased by 28.9 per cent in October, the Slovak Statistics Office said. Slovakia, which joined the European Union in 2004 and adopted the euro in 2009, saw its economy shrink by 4.8 per cent last year amid the global slump.

Slovakia’s central bank has forecast that the economy of this central European nation of 5.5 million will rebound this year with 4.2 per cent growth, and expand by three per cent in 2011.