Czech town of Hodonín seeks to put itself on global map as international transport hub

Pipedream or reality? The idea of turning some of the major rivers in the Czech Republic into short cuts for transporting goods from Asia to the main seaports of Northern Europe and across the continent is still mostly on the drawing board. But one part of that ambitious plan does seem to be shaping up and that's focused on the south Moravian border town of Hodonín.

Illustrative photo: Calvin Teo, CC BY-SA 2.5

Slightly off the main motorway and rail routes between the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Hodonín is perhaps best known perhaps as the birthplace of the founder of Czechoslovakia, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. But local political leaders would like to put it on the worldwide map again and also tackle higher than average unemployment hovering around 8.0 percent by making the town a worldwide transport hub.

With that target in mind, local council leaders signed a memorandum with Prague-based company DOE Europe at the end of April. And this week a visit to sites earmarked for a massive 80 hectare transport hub took place together with Chinese company, Sinohydro. A joint team of geologists and planners are due to descend on the town again in two weeks.

Sinohydro specializes in the construction of massive canal and hydro-electricic complexes worldwide. It already teamed up with the Czech company as part of the raft of partnership and cooperation deals penned during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s eventful visit to Prague at the end of March.

The heart of the transport hub plan is the idea of making the Morava river navigable along a new 80- kilometre stretch by deepening it in parts and building canals on other sections. That 19 billion crown undertaking could then link up with the Danube in one direction to the Black Sea Romanian port of Constanta and in the other direction to the Rhine and North Sea ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp. It’s reckoned that connection could cut thousands of kilometres off the seaborne cargo routes through the Mediterranean and around Spain.

DOE Europe general manager Josef Drebitko explained to Czech Television this week how the cooperation with the Chinese company could pan out:

Josef Drebitko, photo: Czech Television

“We are working together today with an eye on the best projects that are proceeding worldwide. They have around 450 different projects around the world whether it’s in South Africa, Latin America, or North America. We want to compare our different technological capabilities and find compromises where necessary. But for us, the target is to build something at the very top level from a technological point of view.”

Hodonín has hopes that the container traffic terminal for goods shipped on the waterway could be combined with the nearby motorway and rail links and possibly a newly created cargo airport as well as nearby gas and oil pipeline. Up to 3,000 jobs could be created directly at the terminal and in spin off jobs related to it.

Some experts are already seeing this piece of the Central European waterways puzzle as a first key step in the much more ambitious Danube, Oder, Elbe, canal project backed notably by Czech head of state, Miloš Zeman.