The North-Moravian (Moravskoslezsky) region consists of the Bruntal, Frydek-Mistek, Karvina, Novy Jicin, Opava and Ostrava districts. The North-Moravian region is located in the north-easternmost part of CR; it borders Poland on the north and east, and Slovakia in the southeast. With respect to the state administration, the region is split into 6 districts. The regional territory has an area of 5555 km2, (7,04 % of the Czech Republic territory), with 1.286 thousand inhabitants (e.g. 12,5% of the total CR population).

The structure of the region’s economy is unfavourable, due to its historical development. Industry is the main employer in the region, and is especially concentrated in the conurbation around Ostrava and Karvina. In the 1980’s, the region was number one in the CR in the gross industrial output and nearly all the industrial branches can be found there. The coal mining, metallurgy and power productions prevail, with significant concentration of heavy engineering. There are other important sectors, such as chemical and pharmaceutical, electrotechnical, textiles industries, papermaking and food processing. A high number of traditional industrial enterprises are in the critical economic situation due to high debts and a high share of obsolete and non-productive tangible properties. Such a situation is an obstacle for the new investment development and it is difficult for the enterprises to find strategic partners with the capital necessary for the restructuring and modernizing of the production. Ostrava and its neighbourhood, e.g. Karvina, Frydek-Mistek and partially Novy Jicin districts, is the industrial centre of the region.

After the split of former Czechoslovakia, the Ostravsko region is located on the northeast border with Poland and Slovakia, and is most remoted from direct contacts with the country metropolis and with the economic relations with the advanced EU countries. The syndrome of the border isolation is then strengthened by the difficult transport access due to the low capacity communications, which are technically obsolete.

The transport access is formed by the Beskydy Mountains in the southeast, by the Jeseniky Mountains in the northwest and the Moravian Gate, situated in the Oder river valley, which has a relatively low position above the sea level. It is the European Transit Corridor VI (the European Transport Conference, 1997), which crosses the region in the north-south direction, and its extremely favourable geographic conditions predetermine the future transport development of this territory. The absence of direct connections to the motorway network is a major problem in the transport network.