In her speech delivered at the meeting’s opening ceremony, Liu called for efforts to build the China-CEEC health ministers meeting into a key cooperation platform, break new ground in China-CEEC comprehensive cooperation and thus promote the development of China-European Union Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in an all-around, balanced and sustainable manner.

Liu said China is a steadfast force in promoting global health cooperation and has been active in participating in international health assistance programs.

Meanwhile, she also noted that countries across the world including CEEC countries have offered their support for the development of China’s healthcare sector over the years.

Liu further expressed hope that the international communities will step up exchanges and cooperation in medicine and healthcare areas and support a bigger role of the World Health Organization in a bid to address public health challenges and promote health and welfare of the humankind.

The 2015 Health Ministers meeting between China and CEEC was held on June 16 in Prague.

Xinhua, Jun 17,2015

PRAGUE — China is willing to work with the Czech Republic to expand areas of cooperation and lift bilateral ties to new stages, visiting Vice-Premier Liu Yandong has said.

Liu made the remarks while meeting with Bohuslav Sobotka, prime minister of the Czech Republic, on June 15 in Prague.

The vice-premier said the “Belt and Road” initiatives will offer new, important opportunities for the development of Sino-Czech ties.

She urged both sides to take advantage of the cooperation platform between China and Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) and lift China-CEEC cooperation to a new level in the process of jointly advancing the construction of “Belt and Road”.

Sobotka said his country considers deepening friendly cooperation with China as a priority target of its foreign policies and is willing to advance exchanges and cooperation with China in trade, technology, transport, environmental protection, healthcare, sports and films and television, etc.

Moreover, he said the Czech side appreciates China-proposed “Belt and Road” initiatives, which is good for promoting common development of the countries along the “Belt and Road,” and his country is willing to actively participate in the process.

Xinhua, Jun 17,2015

At present, the research centre is seated in several rooms in the teaching hospital complex. Experts in it will examine traditional Chinese medicine´s effect on oncological patients and those with multiple sclerosis.

The future clinic worth about a quarter of billion crowns would not only treat patients but also focus on research and teaching, Prymula said.

“In future, the clinic should be a traditional Chinese medicine centre for Central and Eastern Europe,” he said.

Liu Yandong said this is a pilot project and the first centre of traditional Chinese medicine in Central and Eastern Europe.

It will help improve the health condition of Czech citizens, she said and stressed the importance of further bilateral cooperation in the health area.

Some Czech doctors previously protested against the planned construction of the new clinic.

For example, Czech Doctors´ Chamber (CLK) President Milan Kubek said on Czech Television in January that the CLK recommends medicine based on verified proofs to patients.

Czech Health Minister Svatopluk Nemecek (Social Democrats, CSSD) has dismissed the reservations.

“No one plans to replace the classical medicine with the traditional Chinese one. The latter is really a complement…like spa care or rehabilitation. It is simply a method that can effectively relieve of unpleasant symptoms such as pain and muscular convulsions ,” Nemecek said.

ČTK, Jun 17,2015

The Czech Republic is pioneering a new way of collaboration with China, playing a crucial role in shaping China’s trade and investment relationship with Central and Eastern European countries, and providing a springboard for Chinese companies to go global.

Half a dozen Chinese companies have established a solid presence in the Czech Republic, making the most of its skilled workforce, advanced technology supply chain and lower production costs compared with countries like France and Germany. They are thus able to build business operations that reach out to the whole of Europe.

The country’s location makes delivering goods to the rest of Europe easy, and its membership in the European Union means Chinese companies manufacturing there can export tariff-free to the whole of the EU.

At the same time, hundreds of Czech companies are expanding their exports and investment into China, attracted by the big market and immense business opportunities at a time of economic sluggishness closer to home.

These companies cover a wide variety of sectors, ranging from financial services, medical equipment and services, to firms specializing in Czech crystals and automobiles.

“The Czech Republic has many great industries including cars, white goods and manufacturing, and those strengths provide great opportunities for Chinese collaboration,” says Cheng Yongru, counselor for the economic and commercial section of the Chinese embassy in Prague.

“Many Chinese companies have operations in the Czech Republic serving the European market, and this is just the beginning of the trend,” Cheng says.

As a former leading industrial powerhouse, the Czech Republic has maintained many elements of the industrial supply chain, so Chinese companies that invest there for production can comfortably find a supply of components.

The growing importance that China has placed on the Czech Republic strategically was underlined in a visit by China’s Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli to Prague in August to attend the fifth China Investment Forum and the second China-Central and Eastern Europe leaders’ meeting.

Zhang was with a delegation of about 700 Chinese government representatives and entrepreneurs. The forums were organized by the Czech China Chamber of Collaboration and were attended by more than 1,000 professionals and business executives from China and Europe.

Many Chinese companies have already built factories in the Czech Republic, including the white goods manufacturer Sichuan Changhong Electric, the canned food producer Shanghai Maling Aquarius and Yuncheng Plate-making.

The Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies has become the Czech Republic’s largest telecommunications equipment and service provider, and a supplier to O2, T-mobile and Vodafone, the country’s three biggest operators.

Nie Jinwen, general manager of Yuncheng, says the company decided to open a factory in the Czech Republic to be close to customers and flexibly serve their needs.

“Sometimes we receive customer orders and are required to deliver the products the following day, so the model of manufacturing in China and shipping the products over would never work.”

Yuncheng was founded in Shanxi province 30 years ago, specializing in providing professional rollers used in printing images on packaging. It has more than 80 subsidiaries worldwide.

Nie says that at the Czech factory, Yuncheng makes between 3,000 and 4,000 rollers a year, but its production has a lot of room for growth because the factory’s full capacity is about 6,000 rollers a year.

Yuncheng’s sales in the Czech Republic were worth 11 million yuan ($1.8 million; 1.42 million euros) in the year to September, compared with 8.5 million yuan in the previous corresponding period.

The Chinese shipping and logistics supplier COSCO established a subsidiary in the Czech Republic in September 2011 that oversees its operations there and in Austria, Hungary and Slovakia.

Zhou Xiaomin, managing director of COSCON Central Europe, who is based in Prague, says Central European parts of the business focus on container shipping and are managed by COSCO Container Lines Europe GmbH.

COSCO Container Lines Europe GmbH was founded in 2005. As the European regional headquarters under COSCO container lines Shanghai, it manages more than 40 offices and subsidiaries of COSCO container lines in and around Europe.

COSCON Central Europe is set up as a joint venture between COSCO and the Prague subsidiary of Vasco Shipping, a Spanish company, with COSCO being the majority owner.

“Locally, our staff search for potential customers for the container business, and then we provide follow-up support to local customers for the container shipping,” Zhou says.

In recent years COSCO has focused on developing its business in Central Europe, where demand for container shipping is strong, he says.

In addition, Central Europe is a young market for COSCO with a lot of potential for growth, compared with Western European countries such as Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain, where its presence is more mature.

Although competition in the shipping business is tough, the support Zhou’s team receives from COSCO’s headquarters helps it to become competitive, he says. This support includes COSCO’s comprehensive global network and information system, which allows containers to be transported quickly and efficiently, he says.

In addition, COSCO’s constant drive for innovation gives it an advantage, one example being the recent addition of a new transport route through Greece.

Before that route was added, COSCO transported its containers into Central Europe through either Hamburg in Germany or Koper in Slovenia. Once the items reach a port, they are taken by truck or train to their final destinations.

Zhou says many of COSCO’s customers in Central Europe are local companies that export timber, chemical products and paper to China and globally. In comparison, many of the imports transported into Central Europe are white goods, consumer goods and textile products from the Far East.

One success story of a Czech company expanding quickly after capital received from a Chinese acquisition is Saar Gummi, a car sealing system manufacturer acquired by Chongqing Light Industry & Textile Holding in 2011.

“The acquisition allowed us to grow, develop a long-term plan and get new orders for our products,” says Jan Tichy, executive director of Saar Gummi Czech s.r.o.

Tichy says that new investment in Saar Gummi has enabled it to build a new mixing room for rubber compounds, and production began this year.

Before building the 10 million euros ($13 million) mixing room, Saar Gummi had to buy its rubber material from external suppliers, but now this is produced in-house, Tichy says.

Many Czech companies have expanded into China, one being the country’s iconic crystal brand Moser. The brand, founded by Ludwig Moser (1833-1916), started as an engraver’s workshop in the town of Karlovy Vary in western Bohemia in 1893 and has grown into a world-famous brand, producing glasswork for many European royals and celebrities.

The brand stands out in its attention to detail and elaborate use of colors, says export director Jaroslav Trejbal. “All our products are handmade and on average 35 skilled workers contribute their skills to one particular product.”

About a decade ago, Moser expanded into China through partnerships with two Chinese retailers, in Beijing and Shanghai. One tends to stock more modern pieces and the other one more art nouveau pieces, Trejbal says.

But now Moser is trying to find a strategic partner in China that can take care of the brand’s positioning, promotion and distribution there, Trejbal says.

In the automotive sector, the signature Czech brand Skoda Auto is now becoming increasingly popular in China, and production of Skoda cars began in China in 2005, starting with the Octavia model, and followed by the Fabia, Superb, Rapid and Yeti.

In China, Skoda cars are made in Shanghai and some other smaller cities. The Shanghai factory was established through a joint venture between Skoda’s parent company Volkswagen Group and the Chinese company SAIC in 1984, initially to produce Volkswagen models.

Last year, Skoda says, it sold 227,000 cars in China, and it said during the Beijing Motor Show in April that it aims to sell 500,000 cars a year by 2018.

In addition to Skoda Auto, Skoda Machine Tool and Skoda Electric, two other subsidiaries of the group, have set up operations in China.

Other Czech manufacturing industry firms that have sales in China include Ravak, which makes bathroom equipment; Petrof, which makes pianos; Tos Varnsdorf, which makes machine tools; and Koh-i-Noor Hardtmuth, which makes pencils, pens and art supplies.

Many Czech medical companies and organizations are also eagerly expanding into China, one of them being University Hospital Motol in Prague, which is the main referral hospital for children in the country. Motol works with two Chinese hospitals, Beijing Children’s Hospital and Ruijing Hospital in Shanghai.

Ludek Navara, deputy business manager of Motol, says collaboration began last year when his team visited Beijing and Shanghai on a business trip, and they have built up a relationship to do scientific collaboration.

“The collaboration focused on exchange of experiences, executed by means of a visit. We are still drawing up the plans of specific research projects, and they will begin soon.”

Because Motol is a hospital for children, it has been decorated to appeal to them, and on one wall is a big drawing showing a mole and a panda, the Czech Republic’s and China’s symbolic animals, as friends. Navara says the head of Beijing Children’s Hospital drew the mole on her last visit to Prague.

Linet, a company specializing in healthcare products, expanded into China initially in 2005 in partnership with a Chinese distributor, through whom Linet would sell its intensive care beds, care units, surgical beds and other products.

Tomas Kolar, executive committee member of Linet Group SE, says Linet’s beds have many functions that suit the needs of the patient, including lateral tilting. Another feature is a safety monitor that keeps track of a patient’s movement in bed and sends out an alert if he or she is not in the correct position.

Linet has China’s elder population as a target market for its operations, Kolar says.

“In China, aging is a big concern that is creating a lot of market demand for suitable products, especially as the one-child policy has put a lot of burden on younger generations to care for older family members.”

To meet demand in China for elder care, Kolar says his team is setting up a consultancy in the country called Sinocare. It will train nurses and managers how to care for the elderly, and work with architects to design buildings suitable for seniors so they can have a high quality of life.

“We don’t just want to sell high-quality products to China, but we want to make our customers understand why they buy high-quality products.”

Opportunities for collaboration between the Czech Republic and China are prominent in automotive, chemicals, financial services, general machinery and healthcare, says Vladimir Dlouhy, president of the Czech Chamber of Commerce.

“We would like to see more cooperation across the board, because Czech companies have a modest presence in China, (a country that) has changed immensely in the past 30 years. We have missed some of the opportunities, and we’d like to see more realized.”

China Daily, 10. 10. 2014

Some 120 Chinese children suffering from respiratory diseases will be treated in the spa in Karlova Studánka, north Moravia, under an agreement signed by Health Minister Svatopluk Němeček during President Miloš Zeman’s October visit to China, spokeswoman Štěpánka Čechová told the Czech News Agency today.

The costs will be covered by China under the agreement on medical and spa tourism, Čechová said.

Němeček also signed a memorandum on strategic cooperation of the two countries’ health systems and an agreement on Chinese support for the project of a clinic of traditional Chinese medicine in the Czech Republic, Čechová said.

The cooperation in balneology means economic help to the Czech spas as they will gain new clients from China that will cover the stays and medical procedures, Němeček said.

“The Chinese side is ready to connect Czech spas with Chinese partners,” he added.

China will sponsor the project of a clinic of traditional Chinese medicine in the teaching hospital in Hradec Králové, east Bohemia.

The project will be implemented as part of the cooperation of Czech spas Lázně Velichovky and Lázně Bohdanec with Xiangya University Hospital and the Health Department of Hunan Province.

The health offices of the cities of Tianjin and Shanghai are interested in investing in the project, too.

China will look for a model of official sponsoring and support by private Chinese investors.

“The project of traditional Chinese medicine in Hradec Králové will become a project of reference for other Central and Eastern European countries,” Němeček said.

The cooperation of Czech and Chinese health systems was established by the signing of the “Three-Year Cooperation Action Plan” last May.

This May, a Czech delegation discussed the project of a clinic of traditional Chinese medicine with the Chinese deputy health minister.

In June, Němeček visited China where he signed an agreement with the regional health office in Tianjin.

China proposed that Czech-Chinese cooperation in health care expand to 16 Central and East European countries.

In August, a health panel was formed as part of the Local Leaders Meeting/China Investment Forum with representatives of both ministries, Czech and Chinese businesspeople and health professionals.

An agreement on the first health summit of Central and East European countries and China has been signed.

www.praguepost.com, 5. 11. 2014

Li Bin said that in recent years, the two countries witnessed smooth cooperation and fruitful results in the health sector, with cooperation conducted in hospital management, disease control, talent training and traditional medicine. The health departments and medical institutions from Beijing, Shanghai and Hunan province signed multiple cooperation agreements with their counterparts in the Czech Republic.

Li said that the cooperation between the two countries has reached a new level. 2014 saw the 65th anniversary of establishing foreign relationships between the two countries. China hopes to maintain a friendly relationship with the Czech Republic and further enhance cooperation in healthcare reform, public hospital reform, medical research, traditional medicine and medical tourism.

The Czech Republic’s health minister highly praised the accomplishments of China’s healthcare and medical science. He said that the cooperation of healthcare was important for the two countries’ relationship. He would like to further promote cooperation between medical institutions from both countries and promote direct exchange between provinces from both countries, especially for the cooperation of the TCM sector. He hoped that people from both countries could benefit from the cooperation, thus setting a good example for China’s cooperation with Central and Eastern European countries.

Both countries agreed to organize the first China-Eastern and Central Europe Health Ministers Conference and the third Sino-Czech Health Forum together, which will be held in the Czech Republic in 2015.

Officials from the NHFPC’s bureau of disease prevention and control, bureau of medical administration, department of healthcare reform and department of international cooperation, as well as representatives from the Czech Republic, participated in the meeting.

China Daily, 25. 6. 2014

Minister Mr. Nemecek together with the Head of the National Health and Family Planning Committee (NHFPC) Mrs. Li Bin likewise agreed to promote medical tourism development. One of the opportunity might be receiving Chinese children in famous spa resorts in the Czech Republic. Young private patients can be recovering in the Czech legendary springs. However, a part of this traditional area private patients can be offered top care in many renowned Health Care Centers across the country. Significant breakthrough in patients incoming would obviously represent mutual recognition of diplomas and health insurance assuming both systems could manage to be synchronized.

During his stay in Beijing Czech Minister attended the opening ceremony of the Czech Biomedical laboratory which belongs to Sotio China a.s. which is leading research in cell therapy of cancer. Meanwhile, representatives of the Czech companies held a B2B meeting with Chinese SOE Sinopharm seeking for topics of mutual cooperation.

Culmination of the mission came in the end when the high official of the Czech Ministry of Health and NHFPC, representatives of major hospitals and research centers from both countries attended the aforementioned two-day Czech-Chinese healthcare summit in Tianjin. Both sides delivered presentations on their healthcare system, shared information about health insurance and education respectively and tried to identify challenges that could be handled together.

Minister Nemecek’s has visit undoubtedly contributed to the significant expansion of institutional cooperation and opened the gate for the Czech know-how and hi-tech products flow to China. Some of the companies already signed MOU which is supposed to bring them contracts worth more than $ 1 billion in the years to come. Representatives of the Czech State Institute for Drug Control had a fruitful discussion about the possibilities of importing generics from China what would slightly improve the access to cheaper medicines for Czech patients.

The Chinese side also expressed great interest and hope that the Czech Republic might become a gateway of the traditional Chinese medicine to Central and Eastern Europe. This topic will be approached again during the Health Summit 16 + 1 (representatives of PRC and 16 countries of Central and Eastern Europe) to be held in the Czech Republic in 2015. This warm approach is given not only by the excellent level of the Public Health Care in the Czech Republic but results from the open mindset towards new treatment methods typical for Czechs. It is not the coincidence that first clinic of traditional Chinese medicine in Central Europe will be opened shortly within the University Hospital in Hradec Kralove and will invite doctors from Chinese TCM hospitals to provide the TCM trainings.

Embassy of the Czech Republic in China, 2. 7. 2014

Li Bin said that Sino-Czech health cooperation has made many achievements in the last year. The medical institutions of Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Hunan have set up long-term partnerships with Czech counterparts through cooperation with Sino-Czech health administrative departments, which was an implementation of the Sino-Czech health cooperative project signed in May 2013. Li hoped that China and the Czech Republic could further expand the cooperation areas, making Sino-Czech health cooperation a model of Sino-Central and East European Countries health cooperation.

Minister Němecek agreed with Li’s assessment of Sino-Czech health cooperation and expressed his gratitude to China for its efforts in pushing forward the two countries’ health cooperation. He said that the Czech Health Ministry has covered Traditional Chinese Medicine treatment under the national health insurance. The ministry also invited Chinese children to the Czech Republic to enjoy spa treatments and launched cooperation in diagnosis and treatment of children.

Both sides reached agreements to hold the first health ministers’ forum of China-Central and East European Countries in Prague in 2015. They also agreed to organize the first batch of Chinese children to visit the Czech Republic to receive spa treatment. They will also support more hospitals in China and the Czech Republic to set up partnerships, exchange medical science research and medical staff, and donate medical equipment to each other.

Milos Zeman, president of the Czech Republic, was accompanied by Němecek on a visit to China. President Xi Jinping, accompanied by Li Bin, met with Zeman on October 27. Li and Němecek jointly signed a memorandum of understanding in Sino-Czech medical and health strategic cooperation in the presence of the two countries’ leaders.

Relevant people from the departments of Planning and Information; Health Science, Technology and Education; International Cooperation; Bureau of Disease Prevention and Control; and State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine accompanied the meeting.

China Daily, 29. 10. 2014