“We know that we have a lot to offer, so that Saudi Arabia can be transformed through our investments,” Macinka said, referring to a large investment plan that aims to fundamentally modernize the country by 2030, when it hosts the World Expo.
The minister’s business entourage includes representatives of the arms and aviation companies Omnipol, CSG, Aero Vodochody, the Witkowitz engineering firm, and medical technology suppliers Proma Reha and Meddi hub, who are negotiating new deals in the country.
The importance of Saudi Arabia as a trading partner of the Czech Republic has been growing in recent years, according to the latest official data, mutual trade reaches 1.2 billion dollars (25 billion crowns) per year. Exports mainly consist of engineering, medical or weapons products or means of transport. The majority of Czech imports is represented by oil.
Macinka met with the leadership of the Saudi Arabian Chamber of Commerce in the morning at the beginning of his visit to the Arab country. In the early evening, he will follow it up with meetings with members of the government, to whom he will move from the desert Riyadh to the second largest Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah, located on the coast of the Red Sea.
With representatives of the Saudi Arabian government, Macinka is supposed to discuss, among other things, the possibilities of supplying Czech defense equipment, including radars, or the export of oil to the Czech Republic.
Last year, according to data from the Ministry of Industry, oil from Saudi Arabia accounted for approximately one tenth of the total volume of Czech imports of this raw material, and began to replace oil from Russia, whose consumption the Czech Republic fundamentally limited after the beginning of Russian aggression in Ukraine.
According to Macinka, Saudi Arabian oil contributes to energy security, because Riyadh has ways to avoid transport complications associated with the Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which Tehran responded to American-Israeli attacks.
