Petra Rychnovská has been vice-chair of the Steering Committee of the Association for Foreign Investment since 2013. She is the co-founder and Partner of ASB Group, a consulting company specialising in company formation, strategic consulting and business development. She also has extensive experience in advising foreign investors who want to establish themselves in the Czech Republic.
What should be the priorities in rebuilding the economy after COVID-19, and what opportunities does the Czech Republic offer to foreign investors?
The answer to this question can be divided into two areas. The first area is the immediate recovery of sectors that have been significantly affected by COVID-19. These are mainly tourism, hotels, air transport and catering. Here, we certainly continue to recommend appropriate targeted support so that successful companies that have been established on the market for a long time survive the crisis and so that many quality products, businesses or personalities do not disappear.
The second area concerns restoring trust and support of the government with existing entrepreneurs. Still, the government should also open the door to creating new business entities. Support includes, in particular, reducing barriers to entrepreneurship, simplifying the tax system or not increasing the tax burden on entrepreneurs. In general, opportunities for foreign investors coincide with those for Czech entrepreneurs. It is certainly worth highlighting those areas that the Czech Republic supports due to its natural prerequisites and newly set priority sectors for investment, such as electromobility, hydrogen industry, automated engineering or IT and software development.
You conducted a survey among foreign and Czech investors. What do investors plan or want to change?
We conducted this survey primarily to obtain feedback from a broad group of companies that have invested in the Czech Republic in the industrial sector over the past 25 years. We wanted to know what problems they need to solve in the area of investment, human resources, bureaucracy or relations with the state administration. Another reason why we gather this information is to help investors actively address these issues. The findings are not surprising, but they are, nevertheless, somewhat worrying. One of the main issues that investors point to is the education of employees towards digitalisation and IT.
How is your association reacting to this post-COVID-19 situation, and what are its activities this year?
The association had to move to online communication, and as a result, our activities were not affected in any operational way. Of course, a signifi cant change was the suspension of investment activity due to the inability to travel. A lot of foreign companies had to postpone their plans. On the positive side, however, at least within Europe, there is a good investment momentum in 2020 and 2021. We held a great AFI Annual Conference in September, and a webinar on new grant opportunities was also met with great interest. During the COVID-19 period, the association’s working groups have been involved in areas such as building permits following the intensive preparation of the new Building Act. The Investment Incentives Working Group collaborated with a number of large organisations and the Ministry of Industry and Trade on changes to the investment incentives regime.
Thank you for the interview.
