JEDDAH, 21 February 2005 — “Throughout the 15 years of its transformation period from communism to liberation, the Czech Republic built itself from scratch without the help of any other country,” Czech Republic’s President Vaclav Klaus said during a press conference at the 6th Jeddah Economic Forum.
“We managed to survive, while what was called “East Germany” couldn’t make it though they were getting 150 billion marks yearly and still didn’t survive.” President Vaclav Klaus addressed the press after the session on “Accelerated Development: Building an Economy in the Shadow of Big Neighbors. The Czech Experience in Taking Off” at the Hilton Jeddah. He said in his address: “The criteria imposed by advanced countries on developing counterparts delay the real convergence between their economies and should be avoided.”
“Countries like the Czech Republic need real convergence of their economies with the EU economies. We are afraid that... the wholesale implementation of rules, policies, legislations of more developed countries... will delay the real convergence,” said the president.
Klaus, whose country joined the European Union on May 1 last year, said he considered externally imposed conditions “to be a very significant constraint on the economic performance of the developing countries.”
“This should in my opinion be avoided,” he added. He also downplayed the importance of economic aid as a major catalyst for development in poorer economies. He insisted that opening markets to their exports, as well as establishing free trade, and abolishing protectionism and subsidies in developed countries, were “the really meaningful help to achieve economic development.”
The Czech Republic slashed its trade deficit last year to the lowest level for 10 years on a surge of exports to other EU states, notably Germany, data from the Czech Statistical Office showed earlier this month.
Klaus added that he used to see Thatcher as a guide in privatizing the governmental sectors, but he soon found out that his country did a lot more than what she did. “Thatcher privatized two companies a year and I used to see that as a success. But later on we managed to do more than that, we managed privatize one or two company an hour,” said the president, who pointed out that every facility and services in the country was governmental, including the shops and bakeries.