New Czech export strategy will focus on innovation

Significance

The policy, aimed at bolstering economic resilience and global competitiveness, and forging new national champions, sets Czechia apart from Hungary, Slovakia and Poland, the rest of the Visegrad Four (V4), which either lack vision and an up-to-date strategic roadmap, or approach export policy as a pragmatic extension of broader national interests.

Impacts

• Aligning itself with broader EU priorities may help Czechia navigate a difficult geo-economic terrain.
• Political turbulence in V4 neighbours could crowd out potential regional synergies.
• Strategic dependence on China, Czechia’s fourth-largest trading partner, will slow the belated shift in its foreign policy posture.