Cities around the CEE region are throwing themselves at the Czech automobile manufacturer Škoda Auto as it prepares to make a decision on where to build its next production plant. The Volkswagen-owned company needs to find a location that has enough available labor to product up to 350,000 cars per year, so it’s shopping for the best deal on the market. Lidove noviny reports that Sofia is promising a major new boulevard along with an extension of its metro all the way to the doors of the new factory. Even Bulgaria’s parliamentary deputies have set aside half a billion Czech crowns to support the new factory. Bulgarian media is writing that the only other country on the shortlist for the new factory is Turkey, though Škoda Auto continues to speak of four possibilities, which probably include Serbia and Romania.
