On the evening of March 29, 2016 local time, President Milos Zeman of the Czech Republic held a grand welcome banquet at the Presidential Palace for President Xi Jinping's arrival.

At about 19:30 local time, Xi Jinping arrived at the Presidential Palace. The two heads of state shook hands and had sincere talks with Chinese and Czech guests attending the welcome banquet.

When the banquet began, all guests stood up and the military band played national anthems of China and the Czech Republic. Then the two heads of state delivered passionate speeches respectively.

Xi Jinping stressed in his speech that the Czech Republic, with a long history and splendid culture, is an important country in Europe. China and the Czech Republic enjoy time-honored friendship. The Czech Republic was one of the first countries that recognized and established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China, and offered enormous help and support to the construction of the People's Republic of China, which have been engraved on Chinese people's mind. Since the establishment of the diplomatic relations between China and the Czech Republic 67 years ago, friendship and cooperation remain the main theme of bilateral relations. Currently, the burgeoning bilateral cooperation and increasingly closer exchanges in all fields have brought tangible benefits to the two countries and their peoples. The common ground for development and common interests of the two countries are growing and the breadth and depth of cooperation keep deepening. China is willing to take the establishment of bilateral strategic partnership as an opportunity to enhance political mutual trust, strengthen strategic synergy and deepen practical cooperation with the Czech Republic on the basis of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefits, so as to create a better future for China-Czech relations.

Milos Zeman expressed that China's initiative of the "Belt and Road" construction is a global dream which will link Europe and Asia together. Located at the end of the Silk Road Economic Belt, the Czech Republic hopes to become a safe port for China to enter Europe. The Czech Republic appreciates China's contributions to the cooperation between China and the Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) and is willing to join hands with China to drive Czech-China relations and CEEC-China cooperation for new progress.

Xi Jinping and Milos Zeman also watched together the fantastic performance of the Czech Boys Choir. The show began with the Czech folk song "Black Eyes, Sound Sleep". The music "How will We be not Happy" composed by the famous Czech musician Bedrich Smetana displayed the charm of Czech music. The choir also performed "You and Me", the theme song of the opening ceremony of 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. The whole performance ended with the beautiful melody of the Czech musical masterpiece "Ma Vlast-Vltava". At the end of the show, the two heads of state shook hands warmly with the choir members and expressed high appreciation of their performance. The Czech Boys Choir will put on a show in Beijing this August. They expressed their excitement to Xi Jinping who also welcomed them to perform in Beijing.

Wang Huning, Li Zhanshu, Yang Jiechi and others attended the above activities.