PRAGUE, June 5 (Xinhua) -- An economic and trade symposium between the Czech Republic and Jinhua city in east China's Zhejiang province, was held here Wednesday afternoon in a bid to help entrepreneurs of the two countries to explore cooperation opportunities.
"The economy of Jinhua is now experiencing an upgrading of industries. That means a lot of opportunities for foreign investment and cooperation," said Zhong Shijie, Director General of Foreign Affairs Office of Jinhua Municipal Government.
Jinhua city is famous for its booming private companies, especially the industry of small commodities, Zhong said.
Frantisek Chaloupecky, vice-president of Confederation of Industry of the Czech Republic, expressed willingness to improve cooperation with Jinhua entrepreneurs. He noted that his confederation has more than 11,000 members, and the purpose of the confederation is to help these members to explore business opportunities.
Under the framework of the "Belt and Road" initiative, the confederation has signed several cooperative projects with China, he noted.
At the symposium, an introduction of Czech investment environment was brought to the Jinhua entrepreneurs, followed by a view exchange between the two sides.
Sun Xianhua, Chairman of the Board of Zhejiang N.H.C Trading Group, had never thought that he would be so popular at this session.
After learning that Sun is engaged in import and export trade in Yiwu, a city famous for its commodity trade and vibrant market, Czech entrepreneurs are keen to cooperate with him to help sell their products to China.
Tomas Buchar is one of them. Now working in 2M Servis s.r.o, a Czech production and trading company, Buchar is hoping that Sun could help him sell the Czech wine to the Chinese market.
"Now our wine sales to the Chinese market is pretty low, only several thousand bottles a year," said Bucha, "But the Czech wine we are selling is really of high quality. I hope we could add a zero to the current number with Sun's help."
In the past years, Sino-Czech trade has witnessed rapid development. According to statistics from the Chinese Embassy in Czech Republic, the trade volume between the two countries reached 16.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2018, up 30 percent on a year-on-year base.
