The Prague Post
http://www.aaaradiotaxi.cz/index.php?xSET=lang&xLANG=2
November 20th, 2008
Endowment Fund     Business Listings ONLINE      Reservations      Classifieds    Subscriptions
Prague accommodation

Home » Archives » Business

Investment identified

Local firms and researchers look to tap missile-defense dollars

By Victor Velek
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
January 23rd, 2008 issue

enlarge
Jan Přerovský/THE PRAGUE POST
CompoTech's Blahouš says the foundations may be in place for future deals with U.S. military contractors.
enlarge
The U.S. proposal to erect the radar for its missile-defense base in central Bohemia’s Brdy military area has received torrents of criticism from politicians and upset voters since negotiations began last year.
Outside the political sphere, local businesses and researchers are preparing for a different kind of torrent stemming from the base: U.S. defense dollars.
In a move to bolster support for the radar, U.S. Army officials and major U.S. defense contractors visited Prague Jan. 16–17 for a business and research seminar with 45 local companies and research centers. The seminar, which allowed small firms to mingle with multinational giants like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, emphasized the infusion of cash and scientific collaboration that will accompany the radar.
Participation in such projects could bring Czech companies contracts worth $740 million (13.1 billion Kč) between 2008 and 2013, according to General Henry Obering, head of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), the U.S. government’s arm responsible for ballistic missile defense.
In most accounts, the business benefits of U.S.-Czech collaboration on the radar base have largely been ignored, said Foreign Affairs Minister Karel Schwarzenberg at the seminar’s launch.
“Apart from the security benefits, the ballistic missile defense project will provide a unique opportunity for the U.S. and Czech business and research communities to come together,” he said.
The door to these lucrative contracts will open primarily through a bilateral treaty between Washington and Prague. Talks on the treaty began Jan. 18 and Schwarzenberg expects the negotiations to conclude by the end of spring.
Once finalized, the Czech Republic would join a select group of nations with similar partnerships. Today, the United States has such agreements with Japan, Italy, Australia, the United Kingdom and Denmark.
Although conceived mainly as a business networking event, the radar seminar also led the U.S. delegation to announce that it would seek to extend its collaboration with researchers in the Czech Republic.
“We intend to contract with a consortium of universities and the Academy of Sciences,” Obering said after the seminar. In the future, this could allow Czech researchers to work in projects involving radar technologies and techniques, progressive materials or imaging technology, he said.
The size of the contract and number of researchers involved are not yet finalized and more details will be revealed within the next several months, the MDA said.
In one month the seminar will be evaluated and a timetable of further negotiations, focusing on the most promising areas of cooperation, will be drawn up, says Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Tomáš Pojar.
Prague seems to be turning into the hub of the missile-defense industry. In July, the city will also play host to a business conference dedicated to the sector that will be open to companies from around the world, Pojar said.
Multinational audience
Meanwhile, in the bustle of Prague’s Czernin Palace, the 45 companies and research centers invited to the seminar bubbled at the opportunity to establish contacts with some of the world’s top military contractors.
The meeting represented a rare chance for small companies like CompoTech Plus, a maker of high-tech composite tubes used for industrial applications like robot frames and drive shafts, to make headway into the lucrative U.S. market.
The foundations for future deals could now be in place, said Karel Blahouš, a research manager at CompoTech. “I didn’t expect any immediate result from the meetings,” he said. “The important thing is that we made us visible for large corporations.”
Blahouš introduced his company to representatives of four defense industry powerhouses during face-to-face meetings and had a number of informal chats during coffee and lunch breaks.
There is a good chance that the research consortium contract will lead to concrete projects, said Blahouš, who also lectures at Czech Technical University (ČVUT). Local researchers have a lot to offer and the arms makers showed genuine interest in the projects presented, he added.
Vladimír Mařík, head of the cybernetics department at ČVUT, is more cautious about projecting how many deals will come through. There is a long journey from meetings like the seminar to actual projects, he said.
For the research community, the most important point of the seminar was that it enabled researchers to present their work, even if it has little potential military application, according to Mařík. Defense contractors like Boeing and Raytheon have sizable portfolios, much of which is not necessarily directly related to the business of warfare.
“During the meetings, we didn’t discuss missile-defense systems but rather concrete problems of air navigation, for example,” he said.
For some U.S. corporate representatives, it was their first visit behind the former Iron Curtain. It was apparent that they arrived with only foggy ideas of what to expect, Mařík said, “but I think they were pleasantly surprised by the kind of research we’re pursuing and what we can offer them.”
By this summer, Mařík is hoping that he and his colleagues will face the challenge of collaborating with U.S. contractors rather than trying to launch another round of talks.
“We’ve been promised that the seminar’s conclusions will be ready within a month,” he said. After that, Czech companies should be able to visit select contractors in the United States with detailed presentations of their projects.

Victor Velek can be reached at vvelek@praguepost.com


Other articles in Business (23/01/2008):

Browse the Current Issue

If you enjoyed this article, why don't you subscribe to the print version!
We accept secure online transactions provided by PayPal and Moneybookers

Be the first to add a comment!


Full Name: *
City: *
E-mail: **
This comment can be published in the print version of The Prague Post
Enter the text on the right:
 visual captcha
Comment: *
* Required field. In order to be approved for display, comments must have a first and last name and a city.
** E-mails are required and will only be used for internal purposes.

Most visited in Business Listings

Hotel booking
The Prague Post Online contains a selection of articles that have been printed in
The Prague Post, a weekly newspaper published in the Czech Republic.
To subscribe to the print paper, click here.
Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.