Prague, April 5 (CTK) – The Czech state promised Kc10.7bn worth of investment incentives to 74 projects in 2017, providing aid to investments worth a total of Kc45bn, and the number of jobs companies should create in the future reached 8,260, according to the latest data of CzechInvest agency.
Data on total investments arranged in the Czech Republic, including those where companies did not ask for incentives, will be released by the agency later.
Most incentives headed in production.
For the support of technology and strategic service centres, CzechInvest promised Kc160m to projects of companies Deutsche Telekom Services Europe Czech Republic, Honeywell International and Infosys Limited, all in Brno.
The Industry and Trade Ministry is working on an amendment to law on investment incentives so that mainly investors with a higher value added get the aid in the future.
The document should be presented to the government in June, Industry and Trade Minister Tomas Huner told CTK.
Manufacturing industry’s projects with investment incentives already have a higher value added, CzechInvest said.
Almost all the companies conduct research and development within the production, CzechInvest’s head of investment projects support department Marcela Kolvekova said.
Roughly 15 percent of investment incentives beneficiaries cooperate with the Czech Republic’s universities and research institutions intensively and some 45 percent partially, Kolvekova said.
Incentives contributed to the support of applied research, development and innovations of about 40 percent of projects.
Firms Labe Wood and Karsit Automotive are supposed to gain the biggest investment incentive of up to Kc502m.
Labe Wood plans to invest Kc2.7bn in the construction of a sawmill in Steti, northern Bohemia.
Karsit Automotive wants to build a Kc2.7bn car components plant in Dvur Kralove nad Labem, eastern Bohemia, creating 230 new jobs.
CzechInvest’s new head Silvana Jirotkova said last week that the Czech Republic has to start choosing technologically advanced foreign investments that are linked to Industry 4.0 and bring value added.
The Czech state should shift its focus from attracting investment merely because of the number of jobs to the positions being qualified, Jirotkova said.
Prime Minister Andrej Babis has said that state-run agencies CzechInvest and CzechTrade should merge.
From July 2014, the maximum aid to Czech regions’ large, medium-sized and small companies is 25 percent, 35 percent and 45 percent of the investment, respectively, based on the European Commission’s decision.