President on state visit to the Czech Republic

President Eddie Fenech Adami yesterday started a three-day state visit to the Czech Republic during which talks aimed at enhancing trade between the two countries will take place.

The President and Mrs Fenech Adami, accompanied by a commercial delegation, were welcomed in the Czech capital by the Chief of the Office of the President Jiri Weigl, Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Petr Kolar and the Ambassador of the Czech Republic to Malta Libor Secka.

As the sun shone in the chilly afternoon, the President and his wife visited Prague's Strahov Monastery, one of the oldest monasteries of the Premonstratensian order.

They walked into the richly decorated Strahov church as a piece by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart played on the organ and echoed throughout the temple.

The evening continued with the work of another great composer when Livia Klausova, the wife of Czech President Vaclav Klaus, invited Dr and Mrs Fenech Adami to hear Lugvig van Beethoven's Septet in E Flat Major Op. 20 at the Rudolphinum.

After the concert, the President and his wife hosted a private dinner for the commercial delegation before retiring for the night in preparation for a full day today.

This is Dr Fenech Adami's third state visit since he was appointed President in April last year. His first was a visit to the Vatican, where he met Pope John Paul II, and in October he went to Portugal.

The Minister for Investment and Information Technology, Austin Gatt and the commercial delegation accompanying the President yesterday held meetings with representatives of the Czech Republic's Ministry of Informatics and of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, aimed at increasing commerce between the two countries.

In the first meeting, held at the Ministry of Informatics in Prague, Dr Gatt met Minister of Informatics Vladmir Mlynar. The second meeting took place at the Ministry of Trade, also in Prague, with Vice Minister of Industry and Trade Martin Tlapa.

The members of the commercial delegation include Malta Enterprise chairman Joseph Zammit Tabona, the president of the Malta Chamber of Commerce and Enterprise Louis Apap Bologna, the president of the Malta Federation of Industry Anton Borg and Pierre Fava, from the Employers' Association.