Alpha News

Prague: the darling of foreign investment

( 27 / January / 2005 )

According to the latest survey by the independent British consulting firm CEBR, the most attractive locations for investment in the European Union are in the eight new member countries in the eastern part of the continent. The most attractive region shown in the report is Prague, whose potential for foreign investment was evaluated at 178 % of the EU average. Coming right behind it were Budapest and Bratislava. Finishing on the opposite end of the spectrum was French Corsica.

CEBR evaluates 223 regions of the EU by an index that considers prospects of economic growth, education level of local population, market size and ability to meet criteria of EU programmes set for subsidies to the regions. An index value of 100 % is average for all regions of the Union.

“Whether or not analysts at CEBR are of the same opinion as real potential investors, their opinion also corresponds to the view of London dealers of Czech currency,” reads the analytical report by Marketa Sichtarova, Chief Economist of the consulting firm Next Finance, in connection with the strengthening Czech crown. “We agree with the conclusions at least in the sense that the year 2005 will bring a truly considerable inflow of foreign investment to the Czech Republic worth 200 to 225 billion crowns.”

Of course, Prague also scores high in other international comparisons. It has become the richest region out of the ten new member countries of the European Union, where by exceeding the boundary of the 125 % EU average it broke into the group of 37 most affluent regions in the community. Out of the ten new members only Prague made it into this company. This comes from the assessment by the EU statistical office Eurostat, which compared the share of gross domestic product, taking account of overall competitiveness in the 254 regions of the enlarged EU.

Source: Pravo (27.1.2005), Svet hospodarstvi (20.1.2005)

All news