Slovakia
Slovakia adopted the Euro currency on 1 January 2009 as the 16th member of the Eurozone. The euro in Slovakia was approved by the European commission on 7 May 2008. The Slovak koruna was revalued on 28 May 2008 to 30.126 for 1 euro, which was also the exchange rate for the euro.
Slovakia is an attractive country for foreign investors mainly because of its low wages, low tax rates and well educated labour force. In recent years, Slovakia has been pursuing a policy of encouraging foreign investment. FDI inflow grew more than 600% from 2000 and cumulatively reached an all-time high of $17.3 billion in 2006, or around $22,000 per capita by the end of 2008.
Tuzex
The Czechoslovak koruna (crown) was a soft currency, that is, not exchangeable for other currencies outside the country. In 1948 shops were established under the name Darex to sell goods to foreigners for foreign (hard) currency only (based on the earlier Torgsin shops in the Soviet Union). Later, these became open to ordinary citizens, but not for crowns. In 1950, to speed up transactions and limit fraud, foreign currency was first converted into Darex vouchers in values of crowns.