Economic Effects of Investment Support of Adding Value to Food Products

The reason for this contribution is need for analysis and evaluation of the support of adding value to food products in framework of the Rural Development Programme (sub-measure I.1.3.1) in the context of the preparation of new documents for the new programming period 2014 - 2020. Application of research results is the first step to modification of rules for the RDP granting aid for the programming period 2014 - 2020 in order to be efficient and targeted at food industry in the new conditions. From a methodological point of view the solution is based on counterfactual analysis and identifies the main effects for the food industry using economic indicators. Results show that the supported businesses consolidated their economic position to a certain extent. The investment support has positive impact on financial stability because participants had smaller decrease of profitability than nonparticipants in the period 2007 - 2010. The investment support increases labour productivity. But due to the higher depreciation, as the consequence of investments in fixed assets, the overall effects on economic results are slightly reduced. The author gratefully acknowledge the support of the Ministry of Agriculture – the support came from the institutional support of the Institute of Agricultural Economics and Information (internal research project no. 1262 – “Economic performance of the Czech food processing sector with focus on small and medium enterprises in the context of the measures Rural Development Programme”)