Ｌｉｔｔｌｅ Ｃｚｅｃｈ Ｍｏｌｅ，Ｄｅｅｐ Ａｆｆｅｃｔｉｏｎ Ｆｒｏｍ

Do you remember the little animatedcharacter in The Mole? The famous molehas lived for over 86 years in this animationmovie which was made by Studio Bratri v-triku. Czech. When I was still a child， I was acrazy fan of this kind-hearted buta little silly mole. I even knew howto say it in Czech: krtek! Becauseof that mole， I began to fall in lovewith Czech. After China's ForeignTrade did an interview with Am-bassador of the Czech Repulic toChina， H.E. Dr. Vitezslav Grepl，also an old friend of the Magazine，I have more reasons to have affec-tion towards this country.

H.E. Dr. Vitezslav Grepl has been theAmbassador of the Czech Repulic to Chinafor about 3 years. Besides his mother tongue，he can also speak very good English， Swedish， Finnish and Russian. He was fond of oldmap collection. In the exhibition room of theEmbassy， we could found many previous artworks he collected. From his proud smilewhen he shown us the old Chinese map hecollected， I suddenly knew why I could likethat little mole so much.

Former Czechoslovakia estab-lished former diplomatic relationswith People's Republic of Chinaonly 5 days after its foundation.During those years， we witnessedtogether the good relationship be-tween China and Czech Republic.In December 2005， Premier WenJiabao visited this beautiful Czech，honored \"gardeu of Mid-Europe\".On August 31 this year， the 7thMeeting of Sino-Czech Joint Economic Com-mission was held in Prague. Both sides had anall-round review of the bilateral economic re-lations. By more exchanging activities， Chinaand Czech are walking closer to each other.

By Editor

Q:What's current situation ofeconomic and trade relation-ship between China and Czech?What's the feature of each econo-my? What do they share in commonand what's in complementary?

A:Current economic and tradecooperation between the CzechRepublic and China is in a very goodshape and mutual trade volume keepson growing every year with an impres-sive pace. Last year the volume of ourmutual trade exchange according toCzech statistics reached US$ 6.3 bil-lion， with value of Czech exports atUS$ 390 million， and Chinese exportsat US$ 5.91 billion. We have witnesseda lot of visits of the highest representa-tives of both coun-tries during lascouple of yearsas well as vis-its on regionaland municipallevel includingnumerous busi-ness missions.This helps a lotin creating anddeveloping busi-ness contactsand supportstrade and invest-ment activities inboth directions.

If we look onboth economies，we can pointout the long-lasting industrialtradition of theCzech Republic(also as a formerCzechoslovakia)，craftmanshipand technicalcleverness of itspeople and highquality of itsproducts. Chinais a fast growingand decisivelyemerging indus-trial power withintelligent， ca-pable and hard-working Chinesepeople， Who have been successfully re-building the country into a modern onewith enormous potential for the future.

Both countries are export-orientedwith capacity to produce high qualityand high-tech products. Thanks to thefast development of China， the cur-rent Czech-Chinese economic ties aremuch stronger and closer than ever be-fore. They are not based only on tradeexchange but also on cooperation inmanufacturing and investment.

Q:Compared with years before，what changes have takenplace in economic and trade rela-tionship of both countries?

A:The main change is on the sideof China. It has become a pow-erful and com-petitive producerof wide range ofproducts whichmade this coun-try attractive forCzech producersand importers- many Czechcompanies alreadyfound their sup-pliers with highquality productsand reliable per-formance. Thiscooperation hasbeen graduallydeveloping intoan increasinglystrong investmentflow from theCzech Republic.But on the otherhand. Chinesecompanies also started to be active in-vestors in my country in the past years.

Q:In which field it would bestressed in future coopera-tion between both countries?

A:Despite the traditional sectors ofbilateral cooperation like energysector or machinery， we would like tosee more development and commonprojects in the environmental sector，high-tech production and research，health and labour safety issues or re-newable energy resources implementa-tion.

During the transition period of theCzech economy at the end of the pastcentury， Czech companies gained a lotof experiences and good references insolving serious environmental issues，reducing the industrial pollu-tion， creating a new system ofwaste disposal management，waste water treatment anddrinking water processing etc.All these issues are more andmore actual in today's China，so why would Czech com-panies not give a hand to theChinese side?

Q:What's the reputationof \"Made in China\"brands in Czech? How doCzech people and govern-ment comment on Chineseproducts?

A:\"Made in China\" is already awell known slogan which coversenormously wide range of goods fromsimple cheap products to very sophisticared and most advanced ones. The fastgrowing trade balance show that thereis a high demand for Chinese productsin the Czech Republic whose re-exportsare successfully directed to the de-manding EU market.

Obviously， it is necessary to carryon in adopting effective measuresresulting in supply of safe and qual-ity Chinese goods to the customersworldwide， including the Czech ones. Ibelieve it is only a matter of relativelyshort time when the Chinese pronrotionof quality of Chinese goods would defi-nitely help in orientating our custom-ers. 1 guess that growing number of mycompatriots is well aware that Chineseproducts are not only the cheapest onesbut also high-tech and good qualityones， for example， tele-communication prod-ucts and 1T equipment，computers or increas-ingly cars etc.

Q:What role doesCzech playin EU? How will thegrowing bilateral rela-tions between Chinaand Czech contributeto the developmentof the China-EU rela-tionship?

A:Czech Republicis one of 27 EUmember states sharing the same fullscope of rights， freedoms and responsibil-ities as the other members of the Union.The Czech Repulic has been playing fromthe very beginning of its membershipan active， cooperative and constructiverole in the integrated Europe， realizingthe liberal， democratic and utmost openpolicy towards the others.

That's also our position as a mem-bet of the EU towards China - sup-porting liberal and barriers-free traderelations based on mutual profit and re-specting the standard rules. The CzechRepublic will always support mutuallybeneficial relations between EU andChina on any level. The membership ofthe Czech Republic in EU helped enor-motlsly to accelerate the developmentof the Czech economy which will thussuccessfully contribute to the reliablepartnership between China and EU， thebiggest trade partner of People's Repub-lic of China.

Q:You have been to many dif-ferent countries， such as Brit-ain， Finland， Malaysia and China，which country left you most impres-sive impression? Why?

A:Each of the mentioned countriesis impressive in its own way. Ialways found there enough beauty bothin the landscape and in the minds ofpeople. These countries strongly shapednay life and views on the world andeach of them enriched my knowledgeand understanding of the developmentsin different parts of the world.

Now I am most impressed by absolutely unprecedented developmentsin China which nobody can see any-where else in the world. Traveling allaround China and meeting its peopleand working with them brought mea brand new perspective of life. It islike having the future literally in frontof the eyes. I am very glad that I canspend these exciting years in Chinaand nowhere else.

Q:During those years of work，what's the biggest difficultyyou've ever encountered? Andwhat's the happiest thing or satis-fied you most?

A:For any foreigner including meit is quite difficult to get used topermanent changes that happen in Chi-na every day. For me as Ambassadorit was probably most difficult to find aright new balance between the ambas-sadorial obligations and personal lifewhich has shrunk substantially rightafter my arrival to China.

However， it has been fully compen-sated by utmost interesting， even fasci-nating political， social， economic andcultural developments of current China.I am happy when looking back to threeyears of my ambassadorship in China.I can honestly say that these years be-came the golden age of the Czech-Chi-nese ties in all their areas， which fillsme with the real pride and satisfaction.

Needless to say that the most im-pressive event related to China andthe world community - the upcom-ing Olympic Games in 2008 -is stillahead of us. I will be more than happyto see their great success， both for Chi-na and all participating nations fromaround the globe.