Czech business incubator created in Bangalore

The Czech state business promotion agency CzechTrade and the Association of Small and Mid-Sized Businesses and Self Employed have teamed up to create a incubator to help Czech firms get a foothold in the massive Indian market.

Bangalore, photo: Muhammad Mahdi Karim, GFDL 1.2

The incubator is targeted specifically at helping firms in the engineering, aviation sector, health, auto, environment, and nano-technology. The first steps towards its creation were taken when 16 Czech companies visited Bangalore in March this year. The first evaluations of the Indian market encouraged them to pursue their ambitions and the incubator began to be created with the help of Indian partners.

The association of small and mid-sized businesses is the main interface with Czech companies seeking to expand in India with chairman Karel Havlíček saying that many are prospecting for partners on the sub-continent given its market of 1.3 billion people and relatively fast economic growth.

The Bangalore incubator is the second which the association has helped to create following its first initiative in New York.

A series of Czech companies are already involved with the Indian incubator. These include Beznoska and Mediatrade, specialising in the health sector; Watersavers in the environmental sector; engineering company, Metaliko; and heavy truck producer TATRA Trucks.

Havlíček says India has become a must for those businesses seeking to expand in Asia with Czech exports to the country rising by 40 percent over the last four years and now reaching 15 billion crowns.