Jobs for Czechs and Germans alike

When Dalibor Blažek talks about „the project“, it sounds like a mantra. Doubts? Of course, Mr. Blažek has a few doubts too, but they are not important right now. At least, they are less important than the argument Blažek repeats again and again: jobs.

Dalibor Blažek is the mayor of Aš, pop. 13,000, a town located in the westernmost part of the Czech Republic. Bavaria starts right next to its outskirts. Thuringia and Saxony are not far either. If it were not for Germans who come here in groups every day in search of Vietnamese open-air markets, arcades and prostitutes, Aš would be a „sleepy“ town role model.

But the serenity is likely to end soon as the Israeli grouping BCD is planning to build a huge industrial and amusement park worth about EUR 1 billion in the town. By 2020, BCD wants to cover a 70-hectare area with an industrial park, a hotel, a golf course, a casino, a shopping mall, a hospital and four residential 30-storey buildings with 550 flats. In short – a brand new city will appear on the Bavarian border.

Where are we going to find them?

„Investors have picked Aš because it lies in the middle of a region extending between Dresden and Plzeň,“ BCD spokesman Jindřich Lacko explains. „The region's two million inhabitants create a big potential of labour and purchasing power.“ There is some…