CzechInvest Accompanies Trade Mission of the City of Ostrava to the United States

Representatives of the Ostrava region led by the mayor of the city of Ostrava, Petr Kajnar, undertook a trade mission to the United States from 14 to 17 May. The delegation, which was accompanied by CzechInvest CEO Miroslav Křížek and supported by the General Consulate of the Czech Republic in New York, presented the Ostrava region as an investment location to representatives of American investors, financial and banking institutions and companies during the course of meetings in New York and Pittsburgh.

“In terms of foreign investors’ interest, Ostrava has long been on the rise. The region has excellent infrastructure and an experienced, competitively priced workforce, and also offers one of the Czech Republic’s five strategic industrial zones, in Mošnov,” says Miroslav Křížek, CEO of CzechInvest. “The local administrative authorities, which are very active in this area, play a significant role in bringing foreign investments to the region.”

“Besides manufacturing projects, in the future we need to also attract projects in the area of research and development, which will ensue particularly from close ties with the Technical University of Ostrava,” says Petr Kajnar, mayor of the city of Ostrava.

 The Ostrava delegation spent the first three days of the trade mission in meetings and seminars in New York and then moved on to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with which Ostrava concluded an agreement of the status of sister cities within the international Sister Cities project in 2001. “Pittsburgh and Ostrava have encountered very similar problems, including ecological burdens, during the transition from heavy industry to modern technologies,” says Petr Kajnar. “Cooperation in resolving these problems is thus logical and welcomed by both sides.”

 The meetings and seminars in New York and Pittsburgh, which were focused mainly on the investment characteristics and opportunities in the Ostrava region, were also attended by representatives of the Technical University of Ostrava, the Ostrava Science and Technology Park, the IT4Innovation national centre of excellence for research in the field of information technologies, the National Machinery Cluster and the companies Vítkovice Machinery Group and Tatra, a.s.

For more information please contact the CzechInvest Press Centre

Štěpánka Filipová, spokesperson, phone: +420 296 342 538, stepanka.filipova@czechinvest.org

CzechInvest is celebrating its 20th anniversary!

CzechInvest has been supporting the inflow of foreign direct investments to the Czech Republic for twenty years already. Since its establishment in 1992, the agency has mediated 1,798 investment projects with the total value of more than CZK 715 billion, thanks to which nearly a quarter of a million new jobs have been created. CzechInvest contributes to improving the overall business environment in the Czech Republic and strives to increase the competitiveness of the Czech economy in changing conditions. Since 2004, the agency has also operated as the implementation body for EU structural funds and has regional offices staffed by specialists in every regional capital in the Czech Republic. CzechInvest’s CEO, Miroslav Křížek, was named Manager of the Year 2011 in the Business and Public Services sector.