Upon the invitation of North Carolina’s Department of Commerce Secretary John Skvarla, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic Miloslav Stašek visited the United States on May 11-13, 2016. His business trip to North and South Carolina was a follow up visit to Secretary Skvarla’s previous travels to Prague in September 2015 to meet with Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic Martin Tlapa.

In North Carolina, Deputy Minister Stašek met with Commerce Secretary Skvarla and Charlotte’s Mayor Jennifer Roberts to discuss conditions for attracting additional Czech companies to North Carolina. Currently, Czech firms Linet, Avast, Elmarco, and Grund do business in the state.

In South Carolina, Deputy Minister Stašek met with Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina Henry McMaster and Mayor of Columbia Stephen Benjamin to discuss doing business in South Carolina and the Czech Republic, nuclear energy, and trans-Atlantic trade.

The economic mission consisted of two groups, the energy and the commercial. The energy group included representatives from CzechInvest, ČEPS, ČEZ, and Instar. The commercial group consisted of companies Javlin, Hamé, Holík International, Beta Control, IT-CNS, Slides Live, Anect, and the Uher Company.

Deputy Minister Stašek supported the energy and commercial groups at various business and networking events during their visit in the United States, such as at McGuirre Woods, 7MileAdvisors, Charlotte Chamber of Commerce, Wheelhouse Media, Parker Poe, World Affairs Council Charlott,e and Home Trust Bank.