Vice Minister Chen Xiaohua met with Ms. Jaroslava Bene? ?palková, Deputy Minister of Agriculture of the Czech Republic, and the two sides co-chaired the 1st Meeting of China-Czech Republic Agricultural Cooperation Working Group in Prague on June 28, 2016.
Vice Minister Chen noted that China and the Czech Republic have distinctive features in agricultureand enjoy high complementarities and broad prospect for cooperation in this sector.
To deepen the bilateral agricultural cooperation,Vice Minister Chen put forward a proposalfocusing on the following areas:
(1) building an agricultural demonstration park under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative;
(2) leveraging the multi-lateral mechanism of China-Central-Eastern European Countries cooperation to boost bilateral agricultural cooperation;
(3) enhancing cooperation in food safety and agricultural product processing;
(4)making good use of the China International Agricultural Trade Fair (CATF) and other platforms to promote bilateral agricultural trade;
(5) providing support for agricultural S&T research and exchanges.
Ms. Jaroslava ?palková fully agreed with Vice Minister Chen on his proposal. She expressed that the Czech Republic stands ready to cooperate with China, particularly in agricultural product quality and safety, eco-agriculture and agricultural trade.
The two sides signed a minutes at the end of the meeting.
During his stay in the Czech Republic, Vice Minister Chen also paid a field trip to local livestock farms to learn more about Czech's agriculture and rural development.