DIPLOMATS TO INDIA EMPIRE
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CZECH REPUBLIC
NOVEMBER 2021
Czech Republic and India have always had good relations in trade, culture and politics. The first Czechoslovak Consulate was set up in Bombay in 1920, shortly after Czechoslovak independence. Since then Czech Republic has maintained strong diplomatic relations in the country.
A big step was the establishment of Czech Bata Works in Batanagar in Calcutta in 1930, which had over 100 employees in the 1930. An important sector of bilateral trade cooperation between the two countries is the automotive industry. Skoda Auto is flourishing in India with its widespread productions of Skoda cars as well as a collection of 106 outlets, 69 dealerships and 67 service centres across the country. In 2017, Å koda Auto sold 17,438 units in India. In July 2018, Czech vehicle manufacturer Tatra was reported to be stepping into a partnership along with Reliance Defence in order to build military trucks for India.
Czech educational institutions–particularly technical universities and medical colleges–are interested in exchange programmes with counterpart Indian institutions; they would also like to attract more of the Indian students who go abroad for graduate and post-graduate studies. There is ongoing cooperation in educational and scientific exchanges.
Today, both Czech Republic and India have established close relations in trade, investment and tourism.
-H.E. Mr Milan Hovorka, Ambassador of the Czech Republic to India
SEPTEMBER 2019
Make in India
Czech companies have been actively engaged in Make in India campaign. With the aim to support this governmental initiative, the India Investment Meet within the MSV 2019 International Engineering Fair in Brno will be organized at the beginning of October. The seminar is supposed to present the investment opportunities in India to the Czech companies participating at the Trade Fair and therefor representing mainly the engineering industry. The investment seminar will be launched by Secretary of Department of Heavy Industry, Asha Ram Sihag, who will also lead the Indian delegation of exhibitors and visitors at the MSV 2019 International Engineering Fair. The Indian business delegation is organized by EEPC India and CII. I hope that the strong business presence of India during the MSV 2019 International Engineering Fair, that is truly the most important engineering fair in the region of Central Europe, will contribute to develop further bilateral relations between the Czech Republic and India
-H.E. Mr Milan Hovorka, Ambassador of the Czech Republic to India
JUNE 2019
There has been a significant transformation in the business environment in India and the Czech Republic stands ready to foster technology transfers, large scale investment as well as contacts facilitation for small and medium size enterprises. More at the forefront of our bilateral relations comes however research, science and innovations and year 2019 revolves about promoting added value cooperation on both sides. India and Czech Republic launched a call for submission of projects under Scientific and Technological Cooperation Program and more projects are yet to come. I am very pleased, that innovations are also increasingly developed together across many sectors - defense, automotive or railway manufacturing.
-H.E. Mr Milan Hovorka, Ambassador of the Czech Republic to India
AUGUST 2018
I am pleased to share with you that Czech Republic will engage even more in the Make-in-India initiative after ŠKODA AUTO and VOLKSWAGEN GROUP announced "INDIA 2.0" project. The Czech car manufacturer has been assigned with the task to coordinate Indian operations of the VOLKSWAGEN GROUP which will invest one billion euro in production enlargement and in development of new car models in India and create thousands of new jobs. The ŠKODA brand has an excellent starting point for the planned growth in India. It is active in India since 2001 and the brand has consistently increased sales in recent years.
-H.E. Mr Milan Hovorka, Ambassador of the Czech Republic to India
SEPTEMBER 2017
The interest of Indians to travel and discover the charm of the Czech Republic is growing by unprecedented speed. Only during the first half of this year, we have noticed a 40% increase in total number of Indians who spent at least one night in Czechia. From the beginning of my diplomatic assignment in your country, I had an ambition to open visa application centres in most of the major cities across India. This mission was accomplished quite recently; we have 16 visa application centres at the moment. Hopefully, the new Bollywood movie Jab Harry Met Sejal with Shah Rukh Khan and Anushka Sharma, which was partly shot in Prague, will attract even more Indians to Czechia.
-H.E. Mr Milan Hovorka, Ambassador of the Czech Republic to India
OCTOBER 2016
Indian investors discovered Czechia which is considered to be one of the best trade and investment destinations in Europe due to its favourable business environment, modern infrastructure, skilled labour force and level playing field offering same opportunities to domestic and foreign companies. Indians benefit a lot from the strength of the Czech automotive industry and fast growing demand throughout the whole production chain, but are present also in traditional sectors such as textile, pharmaceutical and steel industry. But are encouraged to join the Infosys in the ICT and BPO area in higher numbers as well. Good to note that the country has become also increasingly attractive location for Indian tourists who are more and more keen to visit Prague and other picturesque places. Here, the tourism gets a lot of support by Indian films shot in Czechia. I am happy that this summer I could be present in Prague during a shooting of a new Bollywood film which will be released sometimes next year.
-H.E. Mr Milan Hovorka, Ambassador of the Czech Republic to India