THE SPATIAL CONCENTRATION OF THE HIGH-TECH MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES IN OSTRAVA

The spatial distribution of economic activities currently attracts great interest of researchers. We investigate the spatial distribution of economic activities in Ostrava in the period of 1999-2009. The paper tries to answer three basic questions: how much are the selected industries concentrated, what are temporal changes of the concentration and what factors determine the concentration and localization of firms. The focus is on high-technology related manufacturing industries inspired by the fact that the idea of "high-tech clusters" is often recognised as an important feature and significant factor in many regional policy initiatives. The key feature of spatial distribution of industries is that they tend to concentrate. The spatial concentration is measured by Duranton and Overman's K density function. The highest tendency to clustering was discovered in the sector "Manufacture of computers and electronic components" and this tendency increases over years. It was also proved that proximity to the city centre has a significant impact on the spatial distribution of high-tech companies.