The Philippines and Czech Republic are eyeing to further strengthen cooperation in various industries, as well as trade and investment relations.

This was signified during the Philippines-Czech Republic Joint Committee on Economic Cooperation (JCEC) last 31 July, a belated report from the Department of Trade and Industry said on Friday.

Areas of cooperation between the two countries are further explored, particularly the agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare industry and medical devices, energy, environment, mining, transportation, IT-BPM (Information Technology and Business Process Management), aerospace and space technologies, defense, education, labor and tourism.

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Undersecretary Allan B. Gepty and Ministry of Industry and Trade Director General Eduard Muřický co-chaired the JCEC meeting that was attended by officials from various government agencies of both sides, including Philippine Ambassador to the Czech Republic H.E. Eduardo R. Meñez and Czech Ambassador to the Philippines H.E. Karel Hejč.

“The Czech Republic is an important partner of the Philippines in Europe. We believe that the JCEC offers an opportunity for us to enhance not only our trade and investment relations but also achieve more concrete outcomes that would contribute to the sustainable development of our countries. The identified areas of cooperation reflect our mutual interests based on industrial strengths, technical expertise and resource endowments,” Undersecretary Gepty said.

Moreover, private sector representatives from the electronics, manufacturing, water and waste management, renewable energy, and transportation sectors also attended from both sides.

The two countries acknowledged the increasing total trade volume which reached $371.2 million in 2023, according to the data from the Philippine Statistics Authority.

Philippine exports to the Czech Republic amounted to $216.2 million with top export products such as semiconductor devices, digital monolithic integrated circuits, storage units, other prepared unrecorded media for sound recording or similar recording of other phenomena, and sports footwear.

Meanwhile, imports totaled $155 million with aeroplanes, materials, accessories, and supplies for the manufacture of dice of any material, revolvers and pistols, electrical and electronic machinery, equipment and parts, and chandeliers and other lighting fittings as top imported products.

The Philippines has largely maintained a trade surplus with the Czech Republic in the last decade.

Noting the potential for increasing trade volumes, both sides agreed to increase efforts to encourage further development of trade on a mutually beneficial basis through focused promotion, greater utilization of the European Union’s Generalized Scheme of Preferences Plus (EU GSP+), and timely conclusion of negotiations for the PH-EU free trade agreement, among others.