CzechInvest’s Japan office moves to seat of Czech diplomacy in Tokyo

The Czech Republic is moving all of its representative offices in Japan to a single location. CzechInvest’s Japanese operations will also be housed in the common location. The new office is opened today by Jaromír Novotný, the Czech ambassador to Japan, and the acting CEO of CzechInvest, Alexandra Rudyšarová.

“Our Japan office has long been one of our most successful foreign branches,” say Rudyšarová. “Last year alone, the office assisted in bringing investments worth nearly CZK one billion to the Czech Republic and we also managed to obtain new orders from Japanese firms for Czech companies – this most recently involved the signing of a contract worth several million crowns annually for the production of gardening equipment under the Canycom brand at Agrostroj in Pelhřimov.”

“The main advantage of the move is that the various Czech representative offices here will be able to quickly and easily inform each other of all events organised in Japan,” explains Ondřej Votruba, director of CzechInvest’s Japan office. “In addition, we will also be closer to our clients – potential investors. Compared with our former location in Yokohama, Tokyo is a somewhat more impressive address. And because all official Czech representative offices in Japan are being moved to the same place, the Czech Republic’s costs will be reduced in the long term.”

As early as Wednesday, CzechInvest organised a meeting with Japanese economic analysts and journalists at the Japan Institute for Foreign Investment. Participants included representatives of MUFG, the world’s biggest bank, the Japanese business and investment promotion organisation JETRO, and Nihon Keizai Shimbun, the biggest Japanese business daily, and many others. On the occasion of the Japan office’s move, the CEO of CzechInvest held a meeting with the heads of four of Japan’s biggest companies.

CzechInvest’s Japan office was established in Yokohama on 7 November 1997 as the agency’s sixth foreign branch. Since then it has played a role in dozens of Japanese investments in the Czech Republic. With CzechInvest’s assistance, Japanese companies have invested a total of CZK 102.119 billion in the Czech Republic and, according to CzechInvest’s statistics, Japan is thus the second biggest investor in the country immediately behind Germany.  

Ondřej Votruba has been the director of CzechInvest’s Japan office since June 2006. Until then he had worked at CzechInvest’s headquarters in Prague as a project manager for Japanese investments and had spent four years as an assistant to the CEO of JETRO, a Japanese governmental organisation focused on supporting Japanese investors in the Czech Republic and development of Czech-Japanese commercial relations. As the director of CzechInvest’s Japan office, Mr. Votruba is responsible for the agency’s marketing activities aimed at enhancing the Czech Republic’s image, seeking out investors and assisting them in their decision to invest in the Czech Republic.

Besides Japan, CzechInvest has foreign offices in the United States, Great Britain, France, Belgium, Germany and Hong Kong.

For more information please contact Press Centre of CzechInvest Agency

Lucie Kocourková, spokesperson, phone: +420 296 342 538, lucie.kocourkova@czechinvest.org