Richard Krpac, Consul General of the Czech Republic in Shanghai Photo: Courtesy of the Consulate General of the Czech Republic in Shanghai

The government of the Czech Republic will take a fair and transparent stance on Huawei, a senior Czech diplomat told the Global Times in an exclusive interview on Wednesday. 

Richard Krpac, consul general of the Czech Republic in Shanghai, told the Global Times in an interview that whether Czech will include the Chinese telecom giant into its 5G network deployment is not decided yet, but it will follow the principles of transparency and fairness.

He also expressed an optimistic outlook for bilateral economic ties in 2020 and hoped that the Chinese economy would continue to be more open to foreign investment. 

"We discuss topics relevant to 5G externally with our allies as well as internally within different parts of the government. The decision about 5G has not been made yet. When the decision is made, I am sure the Czech government will honor the principles of fairness and transparency," he said, adding that Czech welcomes foreign investment and many Chinese companies have invested in the country recently. 

Bilateral ties hit some bumps last year. China may cancel a plan to buy 30 Let L 410 Turbolet transport aircraft made in Czech after some Czech officials made comments that violated the one-China principle, Czech media outlet Denik N reported on January 2.

In response, Krpac stressed that the top leaders of the Czech Republic uphold the one-China principle.

"Some politicians say things that they believe will get them votes. What is important in this context is that nobody from the top Czech leadership has ever questioned the one-China principle and I am sure the government of China understands that," he said. 

As a country along the route of the Belt and Road Initiative, Czech and China have formed close cooperation in the fields of the economy, trade and investment. Both countries committed to a strategic partnership in 2016 and celebrated the 70th anniversary of bilateral ties in 2019.

From January to November 2019, bilateral trade stood at $15 billion, a rise of 7.9 percent year-on-year, Chinese Customs data showed.

"Mutual trade has been growing steadily for number of years. China is now our second-most important partner and the most important partner outside of the EU, as far as trade volume is concerned," he said.

As for 2020, he expected that economic ties and bilateral trade would grow as well as in 2019. 

"The Czech Republic is the industrial superpower of Central and Eastern Europe, and China is quickly growing into the industrial superpower of the world. Mutual exchange of goods between two industrial nations is natural and will grow in the future," he said.