Trade Cooperation Between China and the Czech Republic

Trade Cooperation Between China and the Czech Republic

In July 2009, an agreement on cooperation between Czech Invest and the China Council for the

Promotion of International Trade was concluded. This was in a bid to guarantee mutual

recommendation of business opportunities and contacts, organization of joint trade missions and

exchange of information between the two countries.

Both Czech Republic and China are export oriented countries. Czech Republic mainly targets the EU

market while china spreads all across the world. Czech Republic greatly benefits from international trade

activities majorly due to it’s favorable geographical location, educated and relatively cheap labour and

of course political stability. Other factors such as industrialization and a speedy and stable economy act

as an attractive factor to trade cooperations with this country. The share of exports to GDP in the

Czech Republic reached 84% in 2015.

Over the last two decades, Chinese- Czech cooperation has intensified in terms of trade and investment

as well as in political cooperation. Chinese value added exports are able to reach the western European

market by having them processed In the Czech Republic. cooperation between these two countries is

majorly in the fields of Science, Research, engineering, transport, machinery, glass & Crystal, ICT,

healthcare, food and drinks, consumer goods, environmental protection nano technology and general

aviation and services.

Mutual trade cooperation between China and Czech Republic date back to 1 st October 1949 since the

formal establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Since 2013, the Czech Chinese

trade grew by 60% making china the third largest trading partner for Czech Republic.

Imports from china to the Czech Republic currently account for over 13% of all her imports. According

to the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade, Czech Republic Imports from China

were US$ 20,498 million while her Exports to China was US$2.58 Billion during 2018. Therefore, there

exists a negative trade balance with china and the trade deficit keeps increasing steadily.

Exports to China

Imports to china

Trade visits and agreements

There recently was a state visit by the Chinese president (Xi Jinping) to the Czech Republic

(SMÍŠENÁ ČESKO ČÍSNKÁ KOMORA VZÁJEMNÉ SPOLUPRÁCE, 2016a) to discuss China-Czech relations

to the level of strategic partnership, opening a new era for China-Czech relations.

The establishment of a Chinese Centre in České Budějovice (Chinese Centre of VŠTE 2016). The

centre was founded by and is run by the Institute of Technology and Business in České Budějovice in

co-operation with Chinese universities and institutions. It is an education and research institute that

focuses on political, economic, legal, social, territorial, cultural, security and media studies

benefiting from the cooperation between the Czech Republic and the People's Republic of China.

In the framework of the first China International Import Exhibition (CIIE 2018), in Shanghai recently, the

President of the Republic Milos Zeman and the Minister of Industry and Trade Marta Nováková

launched the Czech-Chinese Business Forum. The forum was geared towards development of the Czech-

Chinese relations in the sphere of trade exchange, investments and tourism, forecast of the Chinese

economy growth and its impact on foreign economic relations.

Recent participation by the Czechinvest in the Chinese Outbound Investment Summit, one of the most

important summits for Chinese all in a bid to promote and attract foreign investors.

The signing of a memorandum of understanding by both countries in the area of aircraft industry,

telecommunications and tourism.

Czech firms in China

Hi-tech technologies from China, especially in the form of mobile technologies, are now available

on the Czech market. At the same time, large Czech companies, such as the PPF Group, have being

doing successful business in China for several years. Home Credit China, a company owned by the

PPF Group, is the largest provider of consumer credit on the Chinese market (SMÍŠENÁ ČESKO