The industrial zone in Krnov is more attractive for investors

Almost a third of the ten-hectare second stage of the industrial zone in Červený dvor will be occupied by the food company DMHERMES TRADE. The remaining area is still available for other investors. More favourable conditions now allow investors to discover the Krnov zone.

The second stage of the industrial zone was created with the help of the government, which financially supported the construction of technical and transport infrastructure, built for 63 million crowns. The list of conditions of this subsidy set in 2012 included, among other things, also the condition that 340 people must find work in the zone and the amount of new investment should reach at least 340 million crowns. The deadline to fulfil all conditions was set as 31 December 2023.

Because the condition of creating 340 job positions could cause difficulties for future investors, as the market may not find enough employees and there is also an increasing automatization and robotization of production lines in the progress, in recent years the city asked the interdepartmental evaluation committee to reduce the number of employees included in this condition and to extend the deadline. In January this year, the committee discussed the application and recommended that the Ministry of Industry and Trade adjust the binding condition.

Tomáš Hradil, the Mayor of Krnov, commented on their decision:

“At the beginning of September 2020, we met together with Mr. Ratiborský, member of parliament, and Deputy Mayor Binar in Prague and attended a meeting of the interdepartmental evaluation committee. The Ministry has now complied with our request and changed the conditions which go with the provided subsidy. The condition for the number of jobs was reduced from 340 to 200 and the date of fulfilling all conditions was moved to 31 December 2027. In practice, this means that our zone will be more attractive to investors. At a time of increased automatization of production lines, it would be difficult to employ such a large number of workers per hectare. At the same time, we have more time to occupy the zone. This can also be good news for local companies.”

So far, the only investor, the Krnov company DMHERMES TRADE, has already started the construction of their plant for 108 million crowns (without VAT). Sixty to seventy workers will be employed there. Several production lines will be located in the production hall, such as the automatic line for the production of fruit and protein bars, filling line for dates syrup and 100% natural balsamic cream with fruit flavours and also an industrial production line for the preparation of special porridges without added sugar. The company also intends to import healthy food commodities from third countries and repackage them in user-friendly packaging suitable for the European market.