The amended Act No. 72/2000 Coll., on Investment Incentives, came into force on Friday, 6 September 2019. The transformation of the Czech economy is the primary reason for the changes in the investment-incentives system prepared by the Ministry of Industry and Trade together with other entities, including CzechInvest. The Czech Republic no longer needs large-scale investments that create jobs for candidates with a lower level of education. By means of incentives, it is now necessary to support high-quality technological investments that will lead to a higher standard of living in the Czech Republic.
Pursuant to the amended Investment Incentives Act, all applications for investment incentives will be subject to approval by the government of the Czech Republic, which will mainly assess the benefits of the given project for the state and the particular region. Support will be provided only for projects with high value added that are focused particularly on research and development and involve jobs for persons with university education. In the area of technology centres and business support services centres, these qualified positions will newly be financially supported across the board throughout the Czech Republic with the exception of Prague.
“The amendment establishes more favourable rules for obtaining support for technological investments with higher value added in the areas of, for example, aerospace, ICT, life sciences, nanotechnology and advanced segments of the automotive industry, which are the primary domain of companies from the United States and Great Britain, for example. We know from experience that companies from these countries value the Czech Republic’s strategic location in combination with the country’s educated workforce,” says Martin Partl, head of CzechInvest’s Foreign Offices Department. “Furthermore, we expect such projects to remain in the Czech Republic for a long period of time.”