TAIWAN Business.EU l institucions l agencies
nanotechnology, to name just a few. The
Czech government recently approved the
country’s brand-new Innovation strategy until
2030 under the slogan “The Czech Republic:
the Country for the Future”, which seeks to
enhance the local environment in the fields of
new technology, R&D, innovation and
education to meet the requirements of
demanding R&D and high-value-added
projects of both Czech and foreign companies and R&D institutions. CzechInvest is also
placing more emphasis on attracting and
assisting high-tech projects benefiting from
the country’s high level of technological
development and its long industrial and
educational tradition. A lot has already been
done, for example in the field of artificial
intelligence, in which the Czech Republic is
ranked among the top countries in Europe
and Czech R&D institutions and companies
have much to offer within AI research and
implementation. Therefore, the Czech
Republic is planning to apply for establishing
one of the European AI Centres of Excellence.
How do you perceive Czech investment in
Taiwan? What role could CzechInvest
have in the area to support Czech
enterprises?
First of all, CzechInvest has 14 regional offices
that can provide export consultancy to
Czech companies on behalf of the CzechTrade agency. I can see a lot of opportunities for
Czech investors in both traditionally strong
areas of Czech industry like automobiles and
electrical systems, as well as a luxury cosmetics, crystal and designer products.
Škoda Auto, Moser or Botanicus are all well
established in Taiwan. Also, the area of
advanced engineering is still very important.
On 1 January 2017, the world's leading
machine-tool manufacturer, TOS Varnsdorf
a.s., merged with the Taiwanese company
Litz Hightech Corp. and established a joint
Mgr. Petr Heczko, M.A.
Director of the Foreign
Activities Division
venture called TOS LITZ Machinery Corporation. The joint venture produces unique
drilling machines, which are mainly targeted
at the Chinese market, as well as Malaysia or
Thailand.
I personally also see a lot of opportunities for
the Czech companies in modern areas like
cybersecurity, environmental protection,
smart city technologies to name a few.
Could you please name a few areas of
cooperation between CzechInvest and
Taiwanese institutions?
Our priority is of course to cater for Czech
and foreign companies. As for the CzechInvest participation in Taiwan, CzechInvest
actively helped to organise the participation
of a delegation of Czech companies in the
Secutech exhibition in April last year and also
actively participated in the Smart City summit
this year. All these activities were organized
jointly with the Czech Economic and Cultural
Office in Taiwan.
CzechInvest continuously cooperates with
TECO, the Taipei Economic and Cultural
Office in Prague, to identify fields of potential
economic cooperation, e.g. within the
automotive industry, electronics and R&D.
Through TECO we also got in touch with
TAITRA, Taiwan External Trade Development
Council, or ITRI, Industrial Technology
Research Institute to exchange information
about business opportunities and the newest
industrial technology developments.
Last but not least, apart from assisting foreign
companies in setting up their operations in
the Czech Republic, CzechInvest is also very
active in supporting the subsequent growth
of Czech start-ups and SMEs on both the
Czech and foreign markets. We send local
start-ups abroad to selected business incubators to help them establish contacts, penetrate new markets and scale up their business
abroad. So it is no surprise that the topic of
start-ups has also been discussed with TECO
with the aim of interconnecting the Czech
and Taiwanese start-up ecosystems.
Could you please tell a little bit more
about the start-up ecosystem in the Czech
Republic?
Within the CEE region, the Czech Republic is
at the forefront of the start-up ecosystem. The
Czech start-up scene has a dynamic growth
and entrepreneurial spirit even if it is still in its
primary stage. The “big boom” started in
2010 when first incubators and accelerators
were established and first investments in
start-up companies were recognized. The
greatest concentration is in large cities
Prague, Brno, Ostrava.
Start-ups are predominantly conducting
business in the sectors such as SaaS, Web
Services and Mobile Software Services,
Analytics / Business Intelligence and Cloud
Services. One of the most highly developed
segments is security, where the Czech
Republic has a good foundation in the form
of globally known firms such as AVAST and
AVG. Currently, the Czech start-up ecosystem conglomerates around 2,000 companies. The number of start-ups is constantly
growing which could also be a good opportunity for Taiwanese investors or for Taiwanese start-ups to expand their business to the
Czech Republic. And CzechInvest is ready to
assist, for instance by organizing an incoming
mission to the Czech Republic on the occasion of the Startup World Cup Summit, the
biggest startup event in the whole CEE
region, planned for April 2020.
Thank you for interview.
foto: Startup World Cup & Summit
Petr graduated from the Faculty of Science at University of Ostrava and
completed his Eastern European Studies with a focus on intercultural
communication, European ethnology, Eastern European history and
economics at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich. He worked as
a project coordinator at the consulting and research agency MKW
Wirtschaftsforschung prior to starting at CzechInvest. He has been working at CzechInvest since 2011. He started out as an information and
marketing specialist, then worked as a territorial specialist for Scandinavia and worked his way up to position of DTitledirector of the Investment Development Department . He has been the Director of the Division of Foreign Activities since April 2018. Petr speaks English, German
and Swedish. He is married and has two children. He likes to spend his
free time with his family and enjoys travelling, cycling, reading and
learning languages.
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