ECONOMIC POTENTIAL
The Southern Moravia Region belongs among regions with significant economic potential. Due to the employment pattern in Southern Moravia, the economic structure of the region is similar to that of the developed European countries. A great advantage of the existing industrial structure is its wide diversification focused on environment-friendly branches.
With an average wage per employee of 16,815 CZK in 2004, the Southern Moravia Region is significantly below the Czech Republic average, which is 18,582 CZK. There are large differences in wage levels in the individual districts of the region. The lowest wage was recorded in the Hodonín (14,612 CZK) district and the highest wage in the Brno-city district which reached 18,249 CZK, as of 2004. In comparison with other regions, the average wages in the Southern Moravia Region are at the 5th position.
| Position | Sector | Average salary in CZK |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Financial mediation | 30,049 |
| 2nd | Power engineering | 20,657 |
| 3rd | Business activities | 20,279 |
| 4th | Public administration | 18,659 |
| 5th | Education | 18,243 |
| 6th | Health care | 18,011 |
| 7th | Building industry | 17,172 |
| 8th | Transport | 15,763 |
| 9th | Trade | 15,744 |
| 10th | Other services | 14,779 |
| source: www.czso.cz | ||
Another important index is an unemployment rate. Southern Moravia with its 10.7 % as of 31.12.2004 has been exceeding the Czech Republic's average (9.5 %, as of 31.12.2004) for a long of time. The rate of unemployment in Brno stated of 31.1.2004 was 9.8 %. The highest unemployment rate has been found in the border areas of Hodonín (neighbouring Slovakia) - Znojmo (neighbouring Austria) - and Břeclav (neighbouring Austria and Slovakia) - where it reaches up to 15 %.
Especially in the regions with a high unemployment rate there is an opportunity to gain subsidies for newly created jobs and retraining of employees.
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Important foreign investors in the Southern Moravia Region:
Alps, Andrew Corporation, Celestica, Collins & Aikman, Danaher Motion, DHL, Hartman-Rico, IMI Norgren, Kompan, Lohmann & Rauscher, Manuli Hydraulics, Mergon International, Nichias, Otis, Saint Gobain Vertex, SIAD, Tyco, Velux, Vetropack,
Southern Moravia continues a long-run industrial tradition, from which the City of Brno stands forth as one of the oldest and most important industrial centres of Central Europe.Brno-City
| Modern development of the city starting in the 19th century raised Brno to the standards of an industrial centre of Austria-Hungary (and later Czechoslovakia). Brno and its surroundings ranks among industrial centres with the most substantial concentration of production capacities in the Czech Republic. During recent years, Brno has become an attractive destination for high technologies in the Czech Republic, which is also proved by the first place in the competition European Cities of the Future 2004/2005 organised by the prestigious FDI magazine in the category Visegrad group. A growing tendency has been monitored regarding the number of enterprises focused on modern technologies in the area of informatics, telecommunications (especially internet telecommunication applications), processing industries (mostly electronics, electrical engineering, medicine and development techniques, biotechnology, hi-tech areas) and strategic services. All these areas are based on a long tradition of development and research, in which Brno universities participate in a significant manner. Strong position of Brno in the sector of information technologies and telecommunications as well as a positive ratio of Brno in terms of a potential regarding the local labour force and its price and availability when compared to other areas of the Czech Republic has also been confirmed by an independent research carried out by Pricewaterhouse Coopers in May 2000. This fact has been verified by foreign investments of such companies as Honeywell (a global development centre oriented especially towards solutions and products designed for automation in buildings and for incineration), IBM Global Services Delivery Center CR or Siemens (both of them having their SW development centres in the city), IngersollRand (engineering), FEI (electron microscopes), BMT (sanitary engineering) and Pliva (pharmaceutics) which all have their research and development centres in Brno, and, additionally, by Czech Technology Park CR, ABB EJF, ABB Lumus, Alstom Power, and others. |
Increasing participation of the sector of services in the total economic product raises the Southern Moravia economy on the European level. City of Brno, the capital of Moravia and a long-tradition trade fair centre of central and eastern Europe, has a significant impact on this advancement. Facilities of Brno Trade Fair Centre take up an area of 650 000 m2 and accommodate 16 pavilions, with a total gross construction space of 196 000 m2. The centre is equipped with several quality indoor exhibition areas, the only ones in the Czech Republic that enable organisition of important international trade fairs oriented towards technologies. The infrastructure of Brno fairs as well as the quality of services are comparable to the standard offer of developed European urban fair centres. The trade fair programme consists of nearly 40 exhibitions that are held with various periodicity and include practically all industrial branches and specializations. The most important exhibitions annually held in Brno are International Fair of Information and Telecommunication Technologies INVEX, International Engineering Fair and International Fair of Machine Tools.
Development of infrastructure, computer networks and telecommunications with an international impact makes Brno a locality suitable for foreign investments in production with high added value.
The greatest urban development project is called Brno Industrial Zone Cernovice Terrace. Comprising an area of 179 ha, having an excellent transport accessibility and being sole-owned by the City of Brno, it optimally qualifies for an effective "greenfield" investment. The zone is designated for projects from selected fields, such as processing industry, strategic services and technological centers.
The following companies are located here: Honeywell, Aguna, Carclo Technical Plastics Brno, Daido, Daikin, Ohmori Technos Corporation. In the premises of CTP Invest Brno there are the following companies: Acer, GigaByte Technology and Moduslink.
Czech Industrial Zone Brno represents a development zone that offers a lease of administrative and production premises for light hi-tech industry and strategic services on an area of 10.5 ha. The project is performed by Technologický Park Brno, a.s. company owned by the statutory city of Brno and the multinational company P&O with the registered office in London in close cooperation with the Brno Polytechnics. The clients of the zone include the following companies: IBM, FEI, Symbol Technologies, Honeywell Controls, Siemens, Český Mobil, Ness, Bobst Eastern Europe, Silicon Graphics, Timken, Control Techniques, Phoenix Contact, ENERGO – PRO, CSC Computer Science. These companies employ the total of 800 employees.
Another development project, Brno South Center, focuses on regeneration of 100 ha of unutilized area in close neighbourhood of the town center, performed by the town development company Brno South Center. The aim of this project is to create conditions for further natural development of the city, administrative, business, cultural and social purposes with a possibility of comfortable flats including the completion of modern infrastructure, quality services and transport connection of Brno with other European cities: In 2005 the international company ECE performed here a successful reconstruction of a building of technical historic interest – a former engineering plant and foundry Vaňkovka and commenced the operation of business and cultural centre - Galerie Vaňkovka.
The most important office centres: Administrative centre Platinium Brno, Axis Office Park Modřice, Brno Business Park, Czech Industrial Zone Brno, IBC Brno, Lidická centrum Brno.
Prepared construction of administrative centres: CD Palace Brno, Spielberk Office Center Brno (the call centre of Lufthansa airline company), Vienna Point Brno.