CzechInvest Announces United Nations Reports Czech Republic to Dominate Inflow of Foreign Investment Into Central and Eastern Europe

According to a recent report published by the United Nations Information Center in Prague, the Czech Republic's inflow of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) dominates all other Central and Eastern European countries, including Poland, Slovakia, Russian Federation, Hungary and Ukraine. 14.9 billion U.S. dollars flowed into the Czech Republic in 2001 and 2002. The report indicates that the Czech Republic, and region, is increasingly being viewed by investors as a strategic opportunity due to its economic and political stability. Additionally, the availability of highly skilled engineering and multilinguistic professionals is attracting increased levels of investment in the fields of research, technology development and strategic business services. Overall, inflows of FDI into Central and Eastern Europe last year reached a new high of $29 billion. This increase in the totality of the region is in sharp contrast to declines of other regions across the world. Recent successes include the largest European consolidation of IT operations with the decision by DHL, the world's largest logistics company, to move most of their IT activities from Great Britain and Switzerland to the Czech Republic. Additionally, this fall, Olympus the world's leading camera producer has announced it will be locating a new strategic services investment to the Czech Republic, and Logica CMG, the internationally recognized system integrator, has announced plans to create a substantial new development center as well as expand its existing operations. Overall, the Czech Republic's growth since 2000 has outpaced the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) average. The OECD predicts an ongoing upswing in economic growth for the Czech Republic through 2005. Drivers of the Czech Republic's economic growth include ongoing increased levels of FDI by world-class technology corporations, including: IBM, Sun Microsystems and EDS; the continuing government commitment to investing aggressively in the nation's technological infrastructure; and, with the world's second-best math and science educational system, increased world-wide demand for its engineers and technologists.