“First of all, I would like to say special thanks to the co-sponsor, the New Silk Road Institute Prague, and especially the Chairman, Mr. Jan Kohout, for his support to this forum.

Since [China’s] President Xi Jinping visited the Czech Republic in 2016, the political, economic and cultural exchanges between both countries have continued to advance and bilateral trade has developed healthily. China is the Czech Republic's largest trading partner outside the EU and the second largest source of imported goods in the Czech Republic; meanwhile, the Czech Republic is China's second largest trading partner in Central and Eastern Europe. Under the vision of China's ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative and ‘16+1 cooperation’, with the steady momentum of the ‘Golden Age’ of Sino-Czech relations, we are here today full of hope, especially for our two countries. This event is a positive force for shared exchanges and cooperation between enterprises. 

The theme of today’s forum is ‘Perspective and Challenges of CEEC Cooperation with China’. We will discuss the ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative and ‘16+1 cooperation and new opportunities for win-win outcomes and mutual benefit.

In 1994, China Europe International Business School was founded by the Chinese government and the European Union. It has developed into a leading international and internationally renowned business school in Asia. CEIBS MBA, EMBA and executive training courses have entered the top 30 of the UK's Financial Times global rankings, with the MBA programme ranking eighth in the world. Five CEIBS campuses span Asia, Europe and Africa, with more than 20,000 alumni in more than 80 countries and regions around the world. We are not only committed to building a world-class and respected business school, but also looking forward to becoming a platform for economic and cultural exchange and cooperation between China and Europe – and the world.

At the beginning of 2017, we jointly established the Economic Research Institute of Central and Eastern Europe (ERICEE) with the SINO-CEE Fund, established academic exchanges with the 16 countries of Central and Eastern Europe and relevant national think tanks and business schools, and provided intellectual support to the relevant state departments for cooperation in Central and Eastern Europe. We also launched the ‘Key Talent Programme for Chinese Companies Going Global’ a special course to help Chinese entrepreneurs in their efforts to go abroad and share the dividends of China's economic growth with the rest of the world. Today’s forum is a bridge through which we may work with European partners to promote cooperation between enterprises in China and Europe.

This is the fourth year that CEIBS is in Europe to hold a series of forums. It is also the second consecutive year we are holding the China-Central and Eastern Europe Development Forum. We are joined by a delegation of entrepreneurs from CEIBS CEO and EMBA programmes and during today’s event, senior officials and authoritative experts will share their insights. We will work with Czech companies to provide case studies and trend analysis as an entry point to explore innovative cooperation between European countries, especially the Czech Republic and China, at the commercial and enterprise levels. We also look forward to this forum being a platform for communication, one that will build a lasting and stable platform for the integration of business resources between China and the Czech Republic.

I hope that our discussions today will contribute to enhancing mutual trust and cooperation between China and the Czech Republic. I wish this forum a complete success, thank you!”