India-Czech Republic Economic Relations
Background:
1. India’s economic and trade links with the Czech Republic, formerly Czechoslovakia, predate our independence. Czechoslovakia formed in 1918, setup its Consulates in Bombay (October 1920) and in Kolkata (December 1929).
2. The famous Czech shoe company Bata Works which began its operations in Batanagar (West Bengal) in the 1930s is one of the most popular Czech brands in India. While Skoda is currently a well-known Czech brand in the automotive industry, in the 1960s Czech motorbikes Jawa and Yezdi were quite popular. In view of their craze, Indian automotive giant Mahindra and Mahindra successfully revived the Jawa brand of motorbikes. The made in India Jawa bikes are being exported to Czech Republic.
3.During the Communist era, Czech companies established a number of major industrial projects in India in the fields of energy, metallurgy, machine tools and transportation and had about 60 major projects in India before 1990. Some of these Czech companies continue to work on Heavy Engineering projects in India.
4. Yesteryear Czech Motorcycle Brand Jawa Is Back In India With New Models And So Is The Nostalgia
India-Czech Bilateral Trade
5. The Czech policy of diversifying its trade away from the EU has given a new momentum to India Czech bilateral trade and economic relations. The bilateral trade, which has been in India’s favour, has been hovering around USD 1.5 Billion since 2017 and has remained constant despite the Covid pandemic in 2020. The trade in 1993 was a mere USD 86 million.
India’s main Exports to Czech Republic:
- Cellular Mobile Handsets
- Garments and textiles
- Pharmaceutical products
- Iron and Steel products,
- Electronic instruments,
- Chemicals
- Power equipment etc.
India’s Imports from Czech Republic
- Auto components,
- Textile and leather machines,
- Machines for rubber and plastic industry,
- Machine-tools
- Food production equipment
- ICT equipment
- Pumps, electronic items etc.
5. Institutional Mechanism for Cooperation
a) Joint Commission on Economic Cooperation: The first meeting of Indo Czech Joint Commission on Economic Cooperation (JCEC) took place in New Delhi in November 2010. The JCEC has been meeting regularly since then with the last meeting being held in October 2018 in Prague.
b) JWG on Heavy Engineering: During the 9th session of the Joint Economic Commission in 2012, both sides agreed to reactivate the Joint Working Group as JWG on Heavy Engineering. The first meeting of JWG was held in Mumbai on March 15, 2013 and JWG has been meeting regularly since then. The 6th JWG on Heavy Engineering was held in Brno in October, 2019 on the sidelines of the MSV International Engineering Fair in Brno.
Bilateral Investments:
6 Almost 7% of Czech investments outside Europe are in India. Around 30 Czech companies have invested in India including Skoda Auto, Skoda Power, Bonatrans, Home Credit etc. in varied sectors like transportation, power, automotive and finance. In 2018, Skoda Auto has committed US$ 1 billion investment into its Project India 2.0 and is launching its new low cost SUV in the Indian market in 2020, made wholly in India.
The brand-new šKODA KUSHAQ is the first production car as part of the INDIA 2.0 project. Under the project šKODA AUTO, Volkswagen Group is investing one billion euros in India.
7.Indian companies have invested in the Czech Republic in sectors such as IT, vehicles, tea, textile, pharmaceutical and auto-components. Major Indian companies which have invested in the Czech Republic include Infosys, LEEL, Cognizant, Samvardhana , Varroc Excellence, Pricol, CLC, KCI, Dina-Hitex, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, Alok Industries/Mileta Horice a.s., APAG.
8.(i) Major landmarks in bilateral economic relations are at Annex 1
(ii) Agreements relevant to bilateral economic cooperation: Annex II
(iii) List of major Czech companies in India is at Annex III
(iv) List of major Indian companies in the Czech Republic is at Annex IV
9. Commercial Representative
Shri Abhijit Chakraborty.
Counsellor
Last updated: March, 2021
