During a recent visit to Prague, Minister of Development Strategies and International Trade Malik Samarawickrama met with senior Czech officials to discuss expanding trade and investment between the two countries.
Minister Samarawickrama met with Deputy Minister, Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic, Petr Ocko, State Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, Miloslav Stasek and President of the Senate, Milan Štěch.
The Czech officials expressed interest in investments in manufacturing for the automobile sector, linking to their supply chain into the Indian subcontinent.
The meetings in Prague followed from a meeting in Colombo on 21st September that the Minister held with a visiting Czech business delegation. Bilateral trade between the two countries is currently just US$30m, with Sri Lankan exports to Czech being primarily in apparels and rubber tyres. FDI between our countries is virtually non-existent. The two sides committed to increasing bilateral trade and investment in the coming years, through more engagement both at the political, as well as business-to-business level.