Breaking Barriers: Unlocking the Potential of the Internal Market in the Czech Republic

1. POINTS OF SINGLE CONTACT IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC Martin TlapaDeputy Minister of Industry and Trade

2. Our Philosophy • Internal Market – great potential for business • Why is this potential still not fully realized? • barriers in our heads (fear from the unknown) • weak awareness of European citizens and businesses (not large companies, but SMEs) • What can we do? • cut the mental borders • disseminate information about the benefits of doing business in the Internal Market

3. PSC project management I. The aim is to provide our businesses and consumers with a first – class service. How do we know that we have chosen the proper way? • continuous assessing the number of clients • continuous assessing the satisfaction of clients (mystery calls) • business costs savings • economic return of the project

4. PSC project management II. How can we reach our aims? • building of skills of the PSCs (language and professional) • building of competences of the Ministry (up-date ofinformation, support to the PSCs) • effective promotion • web portal • For all these activities we have laid down specific terms and responsible people.

5. PSC´s in the Czech Republic – battle on two fronts • How do we organize it? • follow the times of electronic communications — electronic PSC at www.businessinfo.cz • face to face contact must remain — 15 “Corporeal” PSCs

6. “Corporeal“ PSC´s. • infrastructure of15 offices (in all Czech districts and 2 in Prague) • located at the district Trade License Offices • Qualified staff • regularly trained • supervised and supported by our experts from the Services Directive Implementation Team • at least intermediate knowledge of English language

7. Our story Why Trade Licence Offices? • vast majority of authorizations are issued by TradeLicense Offices • their location (in all Czech districts) is ideal to cover the whole area of the Czech Republic • Ministry is a supervising body • rationalization of the costs - the network of offices is already existing

8. Electronic PSC • established at www.businessinfo.cz (most frequently visited web portal by entrepreneurs in the Czech Republic) • 2 main functions: • informative (information about authorization schemes,consumer protection law, remedies and dispute resolutions, etc) • transactional (able to convey the application to relevant authorizing body) • English version will be available by the end of February

9. First experience Data available after the first month of operation • more than 180 requests on corporeal PSC´s and more than 5000 web portal visitors • the busiest PSCs are in Prague and in Brno • in mostcases personal services, small crafts, • most of them (approx. 70%) on cross – border provision of services in the neighbouring countries (AT, DE, PO, SK)

10. Challenges We will be facing a number of challenges in the future! • We need to make sure that the PSCs work with the relevant and updated information • The quality of the staff must remain on the highest level (continuing education, deepening of their language skills, etc.) • Businesses as well as consumers must be constantly informed about the service provided by PSCs (promotion, advertising, …) • The aim is to built a “gateway“ to public administration. PSCs must be a first-class service for the tax payers!

11. Way forward Services remains a priority • Importance of timely and effective implementation • Process of mutual evaluation • Services excluded from the Services Directive

12. 5 keys to unlock potential of Internal Market • Remaining barriers to be removed between old and new member states • Intellectual property rights • Network industries • Completion of IM in services • Lack of common vision in the internal market

13. Thank you for your attention!Martin TlapaDeputy Minister of Industry and Trade