Regionální rozložení německých a rakouských přímých zahraničních investic v České republice s důrazem na zpracovatelský průmysl

The main objective of the authors is to provide a self-contained survey aimed at regional distribution of German and Austrian foreign direct investments in the Czech Republic with emphasis on the processing industry, technology centers and centers of strategic services with a detailed view of some location factors. Germany and Austria are the key investors in the Czech Republic. Investors from these countries were the first ones who invested in the Czech Republic after 1989. The order of the foreign investor countries in the Czech Republic have been usually The Netherlands, Germany, Austria (based on the CNB data 2000 - 2010). The regional distribution of foreign investments has not been balanced in the Czech Republic. The authors present their regional analysis of realized projects supported by the CzechInvest agency in the area of the processing industry, technology centers and centers of strategic services. A transport vehicle production has been the dominated branch of the German investments, mostly in Středočeský kraj, infl uence of the Škoda Auto for a location decision-making process of the investors is identified. Follow up regions in the order of priority are Moravskoslezský kraj and Vysočina. A wood-processing and paper-making industry has been the dominated branch of the Austrian investments, mostly in Moravskoslezský kraj and Vysočina. German investments are concentrated in cross-border regions, mostly Ústecký kraj, Plzeňský kraj, Liberecký kraj, follow up Středočeský kraj and Moravskoslezský kraj. Austrian investments are concentrated in the south regions of the Czech Republic, in isolated cases on the North, exception is Moravskoslezský kraj. The location factor "nearness of home country" can be identifi ed in the case of German and Austrian investments, strongly in the case of the Austrian investments and the investments of smallish fi rms. The importance of the nearness of home country has been confirmed by the correlation analysis, strongly in the case of the Austrian investments. Generally, tradition of branches and related know-how (e.g. automotive industry) are identifi ed as key location factors as well as branch affinity of firms in the regions and transport accessibility and infrastructure.