Jan
Fischer, who arrived in Mongolia
yesterday on the first visit here by a Prime Minister of the Czech Republic
since 1993, has held long ranging talks with Prime Minister S.Batbold. The
visit takes place on the 60^th anniversary of establishment of
diplomatic relationship between the two countries.

Welcoming his guest, the Mongolian Prime Minister expressed
his confidence that the visit will strengthen the relationship between the two countries
and hoped the Czech Republic will act as a bridge between Mongolia and the
EU. He wanted to learn how the Czech attained European Union standards in a
very short time. Once Mongolia
could do this, it will receive international trust and that, together with
reduced production costs, will help the Mongolian economy to grow. It will help
increase Mongolia’s trade
cooperation with EU countries where Mongolia can export 7,200 types of
products without paying customs duty. He also asked for the Czech Republic’s support in getting Mongolia’s name
deleted from the European Commission’s list of countries with a non-market
economy.

The discussions covered wide areas of politics, trade,
economy, defense, infrastructure, energy, environment, agriculture and health.
Bilateral trade has kept increasing in the last three quarters. Stressing the
need for more cooperation between small and medium sized companies of the two
countries, Batbold called for wider collaboration in defense, science,
education, and urged the Czech
Republic to allow more
Mongolian students to attend higher education institutes there.

The two Prime ministers compared notes on the progress
and impact of ongoing joint projects and programs and agreed to work on three
projects in the near future. These are on water supply to Erdenet city, renovation
of equipment in electricity plants, and building 100,000 household apartments. Batbold
wanted cooperation in environmental issues, risk management in the mining
sector, and water purification.