EU-Taiwan Economic Cooperation Agreement: Challenges and Opportunities for the Czech Republic

8. 6. 2015

Expert roundtable organized by the Association for International Affairs (AMO) in cooperation with the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Prague.

In the past year the Czech foreign trade policy in East Asia went through a number of strategic shifts. The attention turned primarily to the strengthening of Czech China dialogue in order to win new investment opportunities and pave the way to Chinese market for Czech exporters. Headlines in newspapers were taken by Czech government attempts to highlight its willingness to move the relationship forward.

In the shadow of Czech China relations Taiwan begins to lose its strategic standpoint as an important business and investment partner. Czech exports to Taiwan have not grown as in case of China, Japan or Korea, but have stagnated for the past five years. The flow of investments from Taiwan has ceased in the past years even though Taiwanese companies always belonged to the most important investors in the Czech Republic. At the same time Taiwan seeks to enhance its trade relations with the European Union via the Economic Cooperation Agreement (ECA).

How could Czech companies further engage with their Taiwanese counterparts?
How could the Czech government support the fading relationship?
How to move beyond geopolitics, close the ECA and exploit the potential of the EU-Taiwan relationship, respectively Czech-Taiwan?

The goal of the event is to connect representatives from government, academia and business, thus leverage experience and knowledge among these sectors. The roundtable outcomes will be in the form of concise and result-oriented guidelines for businesses and the Czech government on how to further advance the Czech Taiwan trade relationship.

Speakers: