Economics and Business

The Czech Republic is one of the most stable and prosperous post-Communist countries in Eastern Europe. High economic growth in 2000-07 was achieved thanks to its growing level of trade with the rest of the EU, primarily to Germany, and a strong recovery of foreign and domestic investment.

The pro-business Civic Democratic Party-led government approved reforms in 2007 designed to cut spending on some social welfare benefits and reform the tax system with the aim of eventually reducing the budget deficit to 2.3% of GDP by 2010.

The government withdrew a 2010 target date for Euro adoption and instead aims to meet the Eurozone criteria around 2012.

Moravia-Silesia operates its own Regional Development Agency (RDA) called Agentura pro Regionální Rozvoj (ARR) is jointly operated by the Moravian-Silesian Region (70%) and the Czech Ministry of Regional Development(30%). It is, however, much smaller than North East England's regional development agency, as most functions are carried out by the regional government.

Moravia-Silesia offers good transport connections to Poland, Slovakia and the rest of the Czech Republic, higher education such as VŠB, University of Ostrava, Business School Ostrava, Silesian University, science, research and high technology. As a result, many well-known companies currently operate in the region, including Bang & Olufsen, Mölnlycke Health Care Klinipro, Behr Czech and Brose CZ. The €1bn Hyundai plant with the production capacity of 300,000 vehicles a year is due to open in the autumn of 2008.

Science, research, high technology, and innovation, and their use in production, have a growing impact on the region's economy. For example, the Ostrava Science and Technology Park operates in close cooperation with the Technical University in Ostrava. Furthermore, there exist wood-industry, automotive and engineering clusters within the region.