Matovic: Slovakia Deprived of Biggest Foreign Investment Because of Sulik (2)

Bratislava, September 25 (TASR) - We Are Family leader Boris Kollar has confirmed that he personally witnessed OLaNO head Igor Matovic reproaching ex-economy minister Richard Sulik for what Matovic saw as the thwarting of a foreign investment in Slovakia by a Chinese company named Catl. "I'm not going to say whether it was treason. I wouldn't dare to use such harsh words," said Kollar, referring to Matovic's opinion on the whole matter. Kollar noted that the investment was supposed to entail 9,000 new jobs, which didn't seem realistic to Sulik at the time, so he and his ministry didn't extend an offer to the enterprise. Earlier in the day, Matovic claimed that Slovakia was deprived of what could have been the biggest foreign investment ever in the country by Catl because of Sulik, who, according to Matovic, never sent an investment offer to the enterprise. Matovic said that Sulik withheld the fact that the company might be interested in investing in Slovakia even from then premier Eduard Heger and the rest of the coalition partners. The Chinese enterprise opted for Hungary in the end. "The biggest investment in [Slovakia's] history ended up in Hungary because of Sulik's decision, and we didn't even fight for it," said Matovic, adding that Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) leader Sulik exalted himself above the public interest and always acted in a way that suited himself instead of Slovakia. To back up his claims, Matovic mentioned two further cases, claiming that Sulik nearly thwarted carmaker Volkswagen's investment in the country and that the then government had to hold talks on the matter behind closed doors without Sulik in order to salvage the investment. Moreover, Matovic said that that U.S. Steel previously wanted to sell its steelworks in Kosice to China, but he as finance minister held talks on persuading the US enterprise to continue investing in Slovakia. According to Matovic, the state wanted to acquire roughly half of the steel mill and presented a favourable offer to this end. Sulik, however, proposed buying it at a lower price. "The Americans were offended and stopped negotiating any divestment with Slovakia," added Matovic. zel/df