Kazakh Ministry of Foreign Affairs invited CzechInvest to the Czech-Kazakh Business Forum - Chamber of Commerce. CzechInvest presented its services to a business delegation from Kazakhstan, Czechia and then to government officials from both countries. There were around 100 confirmed participants.
Kazakh Invest told CzechInvest that they consider them to be one of the most successful investment promotion agencies in Europe and that they would like to gain know-how on how to effectively attract foreign direct investments. They considered it a great achievement that CzechInvest had more than 2,100 successful projects in 30 years, creating more than 300,000 new jobs.
Both parties talked about the history where attraction was dependent on incentives and how this is now tipping and that CzechInvest is working more with comparative advantages such as skilled labor, strategic location, EU membership and long history in the industry. CzechInvest representatives also mentioned that in 2019 the conditions have been adjusted and the incentives have been made available to SMEs. Kazakh Invest has responded very positively to that, as for them, large companies and SMEs have to meet the same conditions for support, which they would like to change and support their SMEs more. Finally, both parties agreed on a series of online/offline meetings to share best practices and know how.