The Investors of the Year 2015 are INA Lanškroun, FNZ and Honeywell

The winners of the sixteenth annual Investor and Business Property of the Year competition were announced by CzechInvest and the AFI at an awards ceremony held at Slovanský dům on Tuesday, 25 October 2016. Awards were presented to a total of eleven significant investors and business properties for 2015. The specialist partner of the competition, the Association for Foreign Investment, awarded special prizes to two winners. The event was held under the auspices of Minister of Industry and Trade Jan Mládek, who presented the first-place award in the Manufacturing category to representatives of INA Lanškroun.

The investment implemented by INA Lanškroun in the amount of CZK 2.5 billion brought 900 new jobs to the Pardubice region. The winner of the IT and Shared Services category was FNZ (Czechia), which will serve customers in Spain and Great Britain from its facility in Brno. Honeywell, which opened new research and development laboratories in Brno, won first place in the Research and Development category.

“In 2015, CzechInvest arranged investments worth nearly CZK 45 billion. More than 30% of all investments involved high-tech projects. This is a clear signal that the Czech Republic has made itself known in the world as an ideal destination for investments with higher added value,” says Minister of Industry and Trade Jan Mládek.

Business Property of the Year awards were also presented in two categories. The Svitavy – Paprsek Industrial Zone was named Industrial Zone of the Year 2015. The Property of the Year for Technology Centres and Services award went to Penta Investments’ Waltrovka development.

“Besides high-quality people, one of the most important criteria is the speed with which an investor can start doing business. It is thus necessary of course to also have a high-quality offer of suitable properties, which is an area in which we definitely feel that there is room for improvement in the future. Therefore, with the support of numerous cities and towns, we selected appropriate locations that new investors can occupy over the next several years,” says Karel Kučera, CEO of CzechInvest.

The AFI Prize for Significant Achievement in the Field of Investments was awarded to Konica Minolta Business Solutions Czech. Jan Amos Havelka, one of the founders of CzechInvest, received the AFI Prize for Long-Term Benefit to the Investment Environment of the Czech Republic.

“I am very pleased that I could present the Prize for Long-Term Benefit to Jan Amos Havelka, who deserves tremendous credit for the historic success and current high standard of the investment environment in the Czech Republic. He also played a role in the establishment of CzechInvest, which was undoubtedly a milestone in the development of the Czech Republic’s investment environment,” says Kamil Blažek, chairman of the Association for Foreign Investment.

The specialist partner of the Investor and Business Property of the Year 2015 competition is the Association for Foreign Investment; the main partners are CTP and Česká spořitelna – provider of Erste Corporate Banking services. Other partners of the event are Asental Group, KPMG Česká republika, PANATTONI EUROPE, Randstad and Nexen Tire Czech. The supporting partners are AC&C Public Relations and Zátiší Catering. The media partners are the weekly Ekonom, Hospodářské noviny and Forbes magazine.