Pavel Sovička has called on the Czech government to re-open the country’s borders as soon as possible in order to allow the industrial production and investment to get back underway. In an open letter to the government, he points out the world’s industrial sector is rethinking how its supply chains are organized and planning new investments closer to home, to avoid the sorts of risks the coronavirus pandemic have uncovered. This provides an opportunity for the Czech Republic, says Sovička, but only if investors have confidence that the country’s borders will remain open during times of crisis. “The big industrial players don’t want to risk complications at border crossings,” he writes. “That would lead to an exit of production back to western countries. The enthusiasm for de-globalization was premature, there will be no transfer of production capacity from Asia to the Czech Republic if we continue to leave the borders closed to the movement of people and goods.”
