The president attended the opening ceremony of the Shanghai office of a Slovakian electronic appliance research institute this morning.

He later visited the Shanghai MPL Company, Ltd. to witness a demonstration of a new technology called "Medianet Protocol" in which both he and the Slovak communications minister showed great interest.

Trade volume between Slovakia and Shanghai has reached 30 million US dollars, with the main commodities consisting of clothing, medicine, steel products, furniture and car components.

Shanghai is the third stop on Schuster's visit to China. He has visited Xi'an and Beijing since his arrival on January 4.

(Xinhua News Agency January 10, 2003)