President Xi in Czech Republic: Industrial investments beginnings & future

Global Business

The flurry of deals and official agreements in Prague are just the latest developments in a long-standing relationship between China and the Czech Republic.

It actually began 60 years ago when the Chinese helped set up a farm in the country. But today it’s turned into something greater.

CCTV’s Ning Hong reports from Hebei Province.

The friendship between China and the Czech republic stretches back to the 1950s. At that time, then-Czechoslovakia gave China a generous amount of farming equipment and to return the favor, China set up a friendship farm in Cangzhou of Hebei Province. After sixty years, the farm is still blossoming.

Over 600 pieces of farming equipment, including tractors, harvesters, and seeders, were given by Czechoslovakia in 1956. Then Chinese premier Zhou Enlai personally expressed his gratitude and oversaw the development of a friendship farm with these equipment and named it the Chinese-Czech Friendship Farm. At that time, a group of Czechoslovakian mechanics was also sent to China to train Chinese farmers.

Now the friendship farm is a high-tech development zone, and has become a bridge between the two countries.

And the friendship has spread into new areas. The local Chinese government is planning to invest 120 million yuan to build a new airport for the aviation school. All the equipment will be imported from the Czech Republic. Along with that, a Chateau was just built to brew beer using technology and raw materials from the Czech Republic.

The friendship farm has paved the way for a close and constant cooperation in trade, culture and education.


Professor Jeremy Garlick on China–Czech economic ties
For more on the economic relations between China and the Czech republic, CCTV America’s Rachelle Akuffo spoke to Jeremy Garlick.

He is an international relations professor at the University of Economics in Prague.