For the fourth time in a row, our company has received an invitation, this time from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, Mr. Bc. Jan Lipavský, to participate in a prestigious meeting of major exporters with representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Czech embassies abroad. The meeting was traditionally held at the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, in the garden of the Czernin Palace in Hradčany, Prague.
The meeting was attended by about 120 representatives of major Czech export companies and many ambassadors and business councillors from foreign embassies.
Unlike last year, the main speech at the beginning of the meeting was not presented personally by the minister Lipavský, because the negotiations in the government were extended, but by his 1st Deputy Mgr. Jiří Kozák. In his speech, he highlighted the competitiveness, activities and results achieved by Czech exports on world markets in many important fields, including the pharmaceutical industry. Of the activities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs aimed at promoting exports, he highlighted, among other things, a new project aimed at increasing the involvement of honorary consuls of the Czech Republic in supporting business activities on their markets.
We can confirm that about 7-8 years ago, the measure adopted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where the amount of remuneration for ambassadors and business councillors is also set with regard to growth and support for exports to the country, soon brought its success. Compared to previous years, when we were often rather a nuisance at our embassies with our questions and needs (and the active approach was only an individual exception of active employees of our embassies), the situation has now changed significantly and the interest in helping business is already visible at first glance.
As an example, we can mention the meeting in of one of our embassies, where they helped us solve a mistake of a customer who was supposed to arrive at BMT in the following days, but incorrectly filled in the visa application, which was therefore rejected. The embassy helped by having employees come to the office on Saturday morning at our request and issue them new documents and an entry visa outside working hours. Or, at our request, they issued a Schengen visa at short notice for our long-term partner from China to visit the fair and our meeting in Germany. Something like this was almost impossible in the past.
I believe that our honorary consuls abroad also have enough business contacts in their countries and their motivation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will also soon bring positive changes and stronger support for exports.
At the meeting, we have again had a chance to meet leading Czech exporters of medical equipment, representatives of Linet, BTL, TSE, Ego Zlín, Block, MZ Liberec and Comedeq, with whom we actively cooperate within the Association of Manufacturers and Suppliers of Medical Devices, and with whom we have already implemented a number of joint export projects on foreign markets financed not only by the Czech government, but also by international financial institutions such as the WHO, the Red Cross, etc. Meetings with representatives of some embassies, who are also actively looking for opportunities to export Czech goods, were also interesting.
From BMT's point of view, similar invitations at the government level for our company must be considered a great honour and recognition of our work, but also as our commitment to further improve our products and develop our export activities in demanding world markets.
6. 8. 2024