January 2017 - We are pleased to announce that Kamil Blažek, a Partner at Kinstellar’s Prague office, has been re-elected for the fourth time as chairman of the Association for Foreign Investment (AFI).
As chairman, Kamil’s main goals for the upcoming period are to encourage changes that will respond appropriately to the new economic conditions, in particular labour shortages and increasing competition from neighboring countries.
The AFI needs to adapt to the new market conditions and focus on investments that consider issues such as labour and industrial areas suitable for large foreign companies, according to Kamil Blažek. "Currently, qualified staff are lacking in some areas, The Czech Republic cannot expect huge investments in manufacturing. The focus should be on sophisticated production in smaller volume and deliberately choosing investments and investors who properly fit into the mosaic of existing businesses".
Blažek has been involved with AFI since 2000 and has served as chairman since 2010.
The following people will be serving on the steering committee for the next two years: Kamil Blažek, chairman (Kinstellar), Petra Rychnovská, vice-chairman (ASB Group) Jan Bobek (Tebodin), Ondřej Havránek (Weinhold Legal), Petr Koljaděnko (Takenaka Europe), Jan Linhart (KPMG), Tomáš Míček (P3 Logistic Parks), Michael Mullen (PwC Legal) and Marta Šťastná (PM Group). Elected members of the Audit Commission are Clément Duclos (Bouygues), Luděk Hanáček (Deloitte) and Martin Ježek (Grafton Recruitment).
Kamil is a Prague-based Partner, who leads the Czech Energy & Utilities practice and is the firm-wide head of the Infrastructure Sector. He is a Czech-qualified lawyer and has more than 20 years of experience in Central Europe as well as in CIS countries and China.
Kamil has extensive experience in advising foreign investors, including negotiating with the governments and public authorities, investment incentives and European law. He has significant experience with real estate and construction as well as environmental issues, in connection with projects in the Czech Republic, in particular in the automotive, transport and general engineering sectors. His experience includes advising Hyundai Motors on the establishment of a EUR 1 bn manufacturing plant and some of the largest recent investments in the Czech Republic – the Nexen Tire EUR 800 mln manufacturing plant and Hyundai Mobis’ EUR 130 mln production plant in the Czech Republic. He has advised many other international clients.
AFI is a Czech Republic based non-governmental organisation that works with the government and foreign investors in order to attract investments, improve the Czech investment environment and assist Czech Republic-based investors in going abroad.