Investment week: First annual Investment week comes to an end.

26 Jun. 2014 | CzechInvest, MPO ČR | CzechInvest organised conferences, workshops and school excursions, and awarded the country’s most significant investors.

CzechInvest organised five days of events for businesspeople, specialists and secondary-school students within Investment Week, which took place from 16 to 20 June 2014. The purpose of Investment Week was to enhance cooperation between the state and particular investors and to resolve their problems.

At the beginning of Investment Week, the Czech government approved a mandate for the prime minister to sign an investment agreement between the Czech Republic and the Korean investor NEXEN, which is preparing to invest nearly CZK 23 billion in the Czech Republic in the first phase of its project involving construction of a tire factory. “With authorisation from the Government of the Czech Republic, Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka will sign an investment agreement with NEXEN on Wednesday, 25 June,” says Minister of Industry and Trade Jan Mládek.

With Investment Week, CzechInvest intends to help initiate the improvement of the Czech Republic’s investment environment. “It is important for the Czech Republic to support not only foreign investors, but also the investment environment itself, thanks to which investors can further expand,” says Ondřej Votruba, acting CEO of CzechInvest. “I believe that the current Czech government is very well aware of this and is appreciably supporting investors.”

The highlight of the week was the conference titled 2014: A Crucial Year for Investment in the Czech Republic, which took place on Wednesday, 18 June 2014, at Žofín Palace in Prague. Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka appeared at the conference to have lunch with investors. “On this occasion, investors mentioned to the prime minister that they perceive the lack of skilled workers as one of the most pressing matters in the Czech investment environment,” says Ondřej Votruba. “We have long been aware of the problem. Popularisation of technical education was thus the objective of the school excursions to local companies that took place around the country during Investment Week.”

The conference was following in the evening by the awards ceremony of the 14^th annual Investor and Business Property of the Year competition organised by CzechInvest in cooperation with the Association for Foreign Investment. The winning investors in the competition’s various categories are LEGO Production, s.r.o., Honeywell, spol. s r.o. and Y Soft Corporation, a.s. Panattoni Park Stříbro was named Industrial Zone of the Year; while Technologický Park Brno, a.s. took first place in the Property of the Year for Technology Centres and Services category, and Enterprise Zone Šternberk was named Brownfield of the Year. The Association for Foreign Investment presented two special prizes to Mann + Hummel Service s.r.o. and ON SEMICONDUCTOR CZECH REPUBLIC, s.r.o.

Seminars, workshops and lectures focused mainly on design in industry, technical education and research and development were held in the regionsthroughout the week. CzechInvest’s regional offices organised a number of the aforementioned excursions of secondary-school students to local companies. Thanks to these open-house events, students could gain an understanding of the work done in their field, whereas some have already expressed interest in later working for those firms.