Internationalization process and changes in Slovak milk industry

The Slovak milk industry has overcome substantial changes during last period and has achieved many criteria comparable with the Western Europe. From this viewpoint, we can state that the quality of milk and milk products, technological equipment and labour efficiency has been improved. Entering of the foreign capital into the Slovak milk processing enterprises increases the quality of products and the volume of processed raw material. The foreign investors choose Slovak enterprises for many reasons. These are: the limited assortment of milk products, cheap labour force in comparison with its value in the EU, cheaper material for production and the necessary energy. In the world, the process of internationalization is necessary together with fusion, strategic alliances and acquisitions, including the private or co-operative companies. The biggest foreign strategic investors are in the following joint stock companies, for example - Liptovská mliekareň, a.s. Liptovský Mikuláš (Bongrain France), Milsy, a.s. Bánovce nad Bebravou (Lactoprot Austria), Rajo, a.s. Bratislava (Meggle Austria and Germany), former Zempmilk, a.s. Michalovce, now Syráreň Bel Slovensko, a.s. (Fromageries Bel France) and others. These companies include more than 52% of the number of big industrial milk processing enterprises in total and during the last period they bought more than 52.5% of the whole milk production in Slovakia.