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In the North American school system students seeking to be the best strive for an 'A' grade.
However, the school system is not the end of the drive to be the best and earn an 'A' grade.
Letter grades are used by rating agencies to rank communities in terms of investment risk.
Ostrava, in recent times, received an 'A3' grade from Moody's Investors Service.
What does this mean to you as a potential investor? What are the other indicators which would point to
the health and prospects of Ostrava's property market?
What does this rating actually mean?
There are 25 rankings from Moodys in the investor services, an 'A3' is seventh from the
top and is defined as an upper-medium grade. A similar grading company, Standard and Poors,
also gave Ostrava an 'A' ranking based on their grading system.
What will that mean for the city?
Some investors will only look at cities with 'A' ratings. It is an indicator of the financial
and fiscal health of the community.
Since the restructuring of the industry in the 1990s, the economic platform of the city
has changed substantially. In fact, most of its incomes are no longer dependant on local
economic conditions.
Ostrava, in receiving this rating, achieved the identical level of rating as other mid-sized
cities in Central Europe. Brno, for example, also received an 'A3' rating (for a complete discussion of
Brno property and economic developments visit
our feature on Brno property.)
Let's go through some other indicators as to the investment potential for this Northern Moravian city.
Area: 214 km2
Population (latest data April, 2004): 315 000
Road Distance from important European and Czech cities:
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City
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kms
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Brno
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170
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Olomouc
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93
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Prague
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360
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Vienna
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310
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Bratislava
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300
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Warsaw
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300
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Budapest
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389
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Berlin
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540
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Paris
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1 500
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With the completion of the D-47 highway the infrastructure
capacity will greatly increase as well as the ease of travel. Travel
time to the Czech capital, Prague, will be shortened to a little
over three hours.
Air Transportation:
Ostrava - Mosnov International Airport is located 25 km from the city
centre. It is the biggest regional airport in the Czech Republic with a
capacity of more than one million passengers per year (current actual figures
are just over 200 000 per year and expected to triple next year) and a runway 3500m
in length and 63m wide, allowing it to accommodate the world's largest
airplanes. Currently it caters to both domestic and international flights.
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At the end of January 2006,
Austrian Airlines began twice daily direct flights from Vienna to Ostrava as part of their 2006 expansion.
Both services will of course be timed to provide perfect connections with the global route network of the Austrian Airlines Group through its Vienna hub.
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Average monthly salary for Ostrava region (2004): 18 966 CZK
Average monthly salary for Czech Republic (2004): 18 582 CZK
Average monthly salary for Czech Republic (2005 2nd Q): 18 763 CZK
Education: 16.3% of residents in Ostrava have University level education compared
to 9.4% Czech wide.
Average temperature in January: - 2°C to -4°C
Average temperature in July: 15°C to 19°C
(hey, some investors want to know this....)
Economy:
Industrial production has always had a strong factor in the economy of the
Ostrava region. Mainly its been based on the excavation and processing of
coal and on related branches - metallurgy, the coking industry, the chemical
industry, electric power generation, civil engineering and heavy engineering.
Metallurgy and heavy engineering remain the largest employers in the City.
Some of the Largest Employers in Ostrava
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Employer
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Business Activity
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Employees (Jan. 2004)
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Mittal Steel Ostrava a.s.
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Metallurgical production, manufacture of
metallurgical and engineering final products
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10 968
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Faculty Hospital
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Healthcare
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3 180
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Czech Railways
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Transportation and communication
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3 075
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Vitkovice Machining
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Machining and Metallurgy
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2 697
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Vitkovice Steel
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Metal production, processing
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1 682
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Ostrava Blast Furnace
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Metals and coking-chemical production
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1 305
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Foreign Investors in Ostrava
(by no means comprehensive, only a sampling)
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Investor (Country)
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Business Activity
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Employees (Jan. 2004)
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Mittal Steel Ostrava a.s. (UK)
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Metallurgical production, manufacture of
metallurgical and engineering final products
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10 968
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Vitkovice Tube Mill, a.s. (Cypress)
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Steel tube production
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932
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Dalkia Ceska republika, a.s.(France)
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Heating and Electrical Production
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697
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BorsodChem MCHZ, s.r.o. (Hungary)
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Chemical production
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623
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Tesco Stores CR a.s. (UK)
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Retail
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580
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Ahold Czech Republic, a.s. (Holland)
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Retail
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529
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Hayes Lemmerz Autokola, a.s. (USA)
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Production of car wheels and automobile parts
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410
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Ostrava Water and Sewage, a.s. (France)
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Production and delivery of drinking water, removal and
cleaning of waste water
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382
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Trefil a Schomberg, s.r.o. (Germany)
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Plastics production
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339
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Hayes Lemmerz Alukola, s.r.o. (Italy)
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Automobile parts manufacturing
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310
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Connex Morava a.s. (Czech Republic/France)
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Road transportation
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212
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Other Investment News
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US based Roper Industries Inc. has decided to invest 24 mil. CZK over the next five years into a new technology centre in Ostrava where it will create 18 highly qualified jobs.
“In Ostrava we will be focusing on projects for the development and innovation of our laboratory instruments. The Ostrava centre will supplement the technology centres of our existing Instrumentation Segment operations located in the U.S., Denmark, Germany and France employing in total almost 1000 people,” commented Will Crocker, Roper’s Vice President and Group Executive for the Instrumentation Segment. “The laboratory instruments produced from the design work there will serve foremost our materialography and physical property testing markets. The results from the product development in Ostrava will be utilized by our segment’s production plants abroad where they will produce the final products.”
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The new customer support centre of GE Money Multiservis for Czech and Slovak clients, a subsidiary of one of the largest and most renowned American companies will be located in Ostrava (Moravia-Silesia region) and will provide work for up to 500 qualified staff members. The total investment exceeds three million euro.
"Our primary reason for opening the new centre is the growth of GE Money in the Czech Republic,“ says Jiri Pathy, Chairman of the Board and General Director of GE Money Multiservis, the company in charge of developing the new centre within GE Money group. "In order to maintain a high standard of services, we will gradually increase the number of staff who are responsible for operating GE Money group and caring for its customers. The new customer service centre allows us to continue to fully meet our customers‘ needs,“ adds Jiri Pathy.
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Taiwan-based ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. is in the process of constructing a new plant and repair center in Ostrava.
Investment into the facilities will reach 20 million EUR and eventually at least 1300 employees will work be employed. The centre should produce up to 200 thousand personal computers per month and the capacity of the repair centre should reach 50 thousand computers per month.
“The important factors in deciding on the location of this plant were mainly the preparedness of the industrial park in Ostrava-Hrabová and the proximity to the Technical University of Ostrava with which we intend to closely cooperate. We are interested in their graduates and would like to take part in creating specific study programs for their electrical engineering departments. We are already considering moving part of our technology-driven activities to the Czech Republic,” said George Wu, Associate Vice President of ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
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The best quality and most beneficial industrial zones in the Czech Republic were handed awards by the
Czech ministers. The fifth annual “Industrial Zone of the Year” awards were presented according to the recommendations of the Ministry of
Industry & Trade and CzechInvest in cooperation with the Association for Foreign Investment (AFI) and partners in the “Partnership to
Support Foreign Direct Investment in the Czech Republic”.
The award for Industrial Zone with the Most Economic Benefits was given to the "Cernovicka terasa" Industrial Zone in Brno,
while the Zone with the Most Social Benefit in 2004 was the Ostrava Hrabova Industrial Zone - 1st Stage. The Industrial Zone
with the Best Town Planning Solution is being prepared by a private developer in Ostrava -– CTPark Ostrava, and the “Brownfield
of the Year” was won by the Skoda Plzen Industrial Zone.
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American company CTS Corporation declared plans to invest nearly 22 million dollars into
a new facility in the Ostrava region of the Czech Republic. CTS Corporation is a leading designer
and producer of electronic components for the automotive and electronics industry. Their
main customers are Siemens, Magneti Marelli, Pierburg, Toyota, Renault and Nissan.
The new facility
is expected to employ over 160 people within three years. Production in the new plant
is targeted for as early as June 2006.
“This investment in the Czech Republic will enable us to raise our production capacity and better serve the European market, which at present is supplied mainly from our plant in Great Britain,” commented Ron Bell, Director of CTS’s European Automotive Operations, and added: “In the Ostrava facility we will be producing electro – mechanical sub - systems and sensors for the auto industry.”
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April 2007: Sungwoo Hitech, a South Korean auto-body part manufacturer,
will build a new production shop in the Ostrava-Hrabova industrial zone. The
firm plans to double its existing employee base of 800.
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May 2007: Pyeong Hwa Automotive , a Korean company, plans to build a
factory with 260 staff to manufacture car doors in Cesky Tesin.
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May 2007: Rossignol Pierre, from France, will build a strategic
center in Ostrava for manufacturing minor automotive parts.
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July 2007: Leoš Janácek airport in Mošnov, Ostrava will begin substantial
development of the airport. Over the next five years, 12 new international
routes will begin to operate including connections to Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam,
Zurich, Helsinki, Warsaw, Kiev and Moscow.
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October 2007: Car component producer Pyeong Hwa Automotive Czech from
South Korea, is currently working on a plant to be completed by May 2008. It will
employ 200 people and cooperate with the new Hyundai car plant in Nosovice and the
Kia plant in southern Slovakia.
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Ostrava Property Figures
Apartment and Flat Rentals in CZK per month (2005 1st Q):
(average range - exceptions can be found either way)
