CzechTrade exporter survey
Last week, the Czech Statistics Office released data on Czech foreign trade in 2001. Although the global economy slowed and the Czech Republic's main trade partner, neighbouring Germany, suffered from an economic recession, Czech foreign trade showed little reaction to these developments as both Czech imports and exports have grown by more than ten percent.
The Czech government's CzechTrade agency, set up to promote Czech foreign trade, has recently conducted a survey among 1,500 Czech companies which export their goods. The aim was to find out how these external factors influence their business, whether they suffer from the continuing strengthening of the Czech currency and what obstacles in foreign trade they find the most annoying. I spoke to Martin Tlapa, the director of CzechTrade, about the results of the survey: