In September, we informed you about the government proposal to amend the government regulation on investment incentives for strategic investments. In the first half of December, this amendment was published in the Collection of Laws.

The amendment will enable faster and direct support of entrepreneurs and will open up the options especially for smaller technological start-ups.

The amendment brings three fundamental changes in the area of strategic investments:

• increasing the limits of support to 20% of eligible costs without an explicit value ceiling for the Moravia-Silesian, Karlovy Vary and Ústí nad Labem regions;
• adjustment of the amount of investment to CZK 2bn (a minimum of CZK 1bn in machinery) and the number of new jobs to 250 for strategic investments in production,
• extension of the range of strategic investments in manufacturing – now, regardless of the limits mentioned in the previous points, investments focusing on selected sectors of the processing industry with high technological intensity will be supported under strategic investments in manufacturing.

The amendment will take effect on 1 January 2022 and the original legislation will apply to all proceedings pending at that time.