You're reading: Czech Republic wants Ukraine, EU to sign free trade agreement

Czech Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade of Milan Hovorka has said that his country wants to see the signing of provisions on a free trade area between Ukraine and the EU.

"We want the conditions to be created for the signing of a comprehensive free trade area, and we want entrepreneurs in Ukraine and the Czech Republic to take advantage of all the benefits of this agreement," he said at a meeting of the Ukrainian-Czech intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation co-chaired by him in Kyiv on Monday.

Hovorka noted that in 2010-2011, Ukraine and the Czech Republic had managed to create growth in bilateral trade.

He said that in the first ten months of 2011, trade between the two countries amounted to about $2.3 billion.

The co-chairman of the commission from the Ukrainian side, Emergencies Minister Viktor Baloha, in turn, said that the agreement on a free trade area between Ukraine and the EU had already been agreed and added he was confident that the document would be signed in 2012.

"We look forward to the speedy ratification of this agreement, both by the European Parliament and EU member states, first of all, by the Czech side," he said.

Baloha said that Ukraine hopes for the assistance of the Czech Republic in implementing the action plan on the liberalization of the visa regime between Ukraine and the EU.

The minister said that the trade had grown and bilateral trade between Ukraine and the Czech Republic had intensified over the last two years.

He said that in the first three quarters of 2011, trade rose by 55% and that the volume of Ukrainian exports to the Czech Republic was a record high in the history of bilateral relations.

He said that Ukrainian exports to the Czech Republic grew mainly through an increase in the supply of products with low added value, in particular, iron ore, steel products, petroleum and petroleum products, and wood.