INTERNATIONAL: Rail and urban transport manufacturers sought to identify opportunities in Middle Eastern markets during a trade mission organised by national rail industry association ACRI as part of Czech President Petr Pavel’s state visit to Qatar and Israel.
ACRI Chief Executive Marie Vopálenská said there the potential to sell Czech trams, metro trains, signalling and information systems in the Middle East market, where its members have already won significant contracts.
During the trade mission ACRI met representatives of Israel Railways, and Israeli’s Ministry of Transport expressed interest in bilateral co-operation with its Czech counterpart.
‘Israel is already a very promising market for the Czech railway industry’, said Vopálenská after the state vising in mid-January. ’AŽD Praha has implemented a pilot project for the supply of technologies for the diagnostics of turnouts at several stations. The involvement of Czech companies and the interest of Škoda Group in participating in tenders for trams were key points in the mutual negotiations.’
Czech companies are interested in Israel’s cybersecurity expertise, and meetings were held with Cyber7, IONSec and Ben Gurion University.
ACRI sees ‘significant potential’ for the Czech rail supply sector in Qatar, which offers an open and welcoming market, ‘first-class’ infrastructure and suitable legislation.
Meetings were held with the Chamber of Commerce, the Czech-Qatar Committee of the Czech Chamber of Commerce and Invest Qatar.
‘Qatar is transitioning to a public transport system powered by electricity’, said Vopálenská. ‘There is a strong focus on testing autonomous vehicles and the use of artificial intelligence. This area is also of interest to our members and has been the subject of discussions with representatives of the Ministry of Transport.’
ACRI said it members export 60% of their production, and have offices and subsidiaries in more than 20 countries.