Business and Investment Development Agency

Stora Enso

Stora Enso

Timber company from the north will launch operations worth CZK 2 billion in Ždírec nad Doubravou

With global turnover of EUR 8.5 billion in 2020, Stora Enso ranks among the leading timber companies in the Scandinavian countries. CzechInvest helped the company to set up operations in the Czech Republic and with arranging an investment incentive. Stora Enso is currently investing nearly CZK 2 billion in a new CLT panel factory in Ždírec nad Doubravou.

More trees planted than cut down. That is the philosophy of Stora Enso, which has operations in more than 30 countries around the world and employs 25,000 people. The company manufactures wood products that are used in construction and forestry, as well as in textile production and the food industry. It is committed to sustainability and invests significant amounts in research and development. “In Scandinavia, the company is a tradition and a very important player on the market, like Škoda in the Czech Republic. It brings possibilities to the construction industry that are unrivalled in our conditions,” says František Vícha, who represents the company in the Czech Republic as its executive director here.

The company has been represented in the Czech Republic since the end of the 1990s mainly by its Wood Product division, which currently has more than one thousand employees in three locations – a software centre in Ostrava and production plants in Plana u Mariánských Lázní and Ždírec nad Doubravou.

Stora Enso is also building a new production unit for manufacturing CLT panels in Vysočina. “CLT panels are composed of three or more layers of wood and are used in the construction of houses and public buildings, as well as office and high-rise buildings. The advantages of wood buildings made of solid CLT panels include spatial rigidity, structural durability and speed of construction. Furthermore, the panels provide, for example, a six- to ten-percent saving of living space in comparison with other construction materials due to their advantageous thickness,” says Vícha.

“We have been cooperating with CzechInvest for more than ten years. The agency advises us on, for example, how to correctly apply for an investment incentive and the direction we should take with respect to investments. Since the very beginning of our operations in the Czech Republic, it has been an important and key partner to us,” Vícha concludes.

CzechInvest and Stora Enso

Through CzechInvest, the company applied for an investment incentive for its recent investment in the factory in Ždírec. In August 2019, an incentive in the amount of CZK 380 million from the state budget was approved, with Stora Enso’s total investment amounting to more than CZK 1.9 billion. Approximately 110 new jobs will be created. The estimated annual capacity of the production line will be 120,000 m3 of CLT panels. If the factory runs at full capacity, its annual turnover should be approximately CZK 1.8 billion.

CzechInvest has been supporting the company since the very beginning of its operations in the Czech Republic. “CzechInvest’s assistance and support played a major role in the decision of the company’s management as to whether to build factories in the Czech Republic, as did the company’s historical experience with doing business in the Czech Republic and the legal, tax and business conditions here,” says Vícha.

In addition to production, the company is also investing in the innovation sector in the Czech Republic. Its Software Development Competence Centre in Ostrava, which is the largest IT and digitalisation centre within Stora Enso, has been in operation since 2006. A new financial centre was added in Ostrava in 2017 and provides IT systems management and development services, including maintenance support for the implementation of innovations and digitalisation, to all divisions of the company and their production plants around the world.

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