Dear Business Partners,Associates and Co-Workers,Dear Friends,in the introduction to our company’s annualreport <strong>for</strong> the past period, I would liketo thank all our employees <strong>for</strong> their excellentwork, our associates <strong>for</strong> their support,our business partners <strong>for</strong> their trust andour friends and supporters <strong>for</strong> promotingthe good name of AŽD <strong>Praha</strong>.The 2010/2011 financial year was definitelynot an easy one. In the beginningof his period there were certain doubts anduncertainties – how can we fulfil our plans,how many contracts will we secure and whatis the future outlook. Looking back at thisperiod, I am pleased to state that we fulfilledour main tasks in the economic, technicaland business areas. We fulfilled them despitethe commencing recession and the consequentreduction in transportation infrastructureinvestments, and despite a situationwhen success abroad has never been moredifficult. We are even more proud of our <strong>results</strong>because of the above conditions. Wehave maintained and strengthened the goodname of our company on the domestic mar-6
ket as well as abroad. Professionalism, flexibilityand our ef<strong>for</strong>ts to meet all our customers’requirements have been and will continue tobe the main principles of our policy.We continued with the implementation ofdomestic projects involving the backbonenetworks of the 3rd and 4th national transitcorridors, secondary railway lines and junctions,such as the Beroun – Zbiroh, MariánskéLázně – Cheb and Benešov – Votice sections,commencement of work at the StaráPaka junction and other projects. We continuedthe implementation of telecommunicationsystems, road telematics systems andother technologies. We strived to be flexiblewhen responding to emergencies, the recommendationsof our customers and traindrivers by initiating and implementing ourown improvement proposals. However, it isclear that the times of full capacity utilization,which we remember from five yearsago, are not coming back. Hence we havecontinued to reduce company costs notonly by reducing our operating costs but,un<strong>for</strong>tunately, also by reducing numberof our employees and by implementingthe very much needed reorganization. Thatresulted, among other things, in reductionin our production capacities in Prague. Nevertheless,we should also remember that wehelped many people to find new jobs withinthe company.Abroad, we extended the positive <strong>results</strong>of the previous years. One should notoverlook our important contracts in Belarus,Lithuania, Serbia and Montenegro andthe deliveries of our products to Malaysia,Turkey, Greece and the United States. Un<strong>for</strong>tunately,due to in particular politicalchanges, we have not been successful inEgypt and Syria and our <strong>results</strong> in Bulgariaalso lagged behind our expectations. Wecarried out very important contracts inSlovakia – <strong>for</strong> example, the construction ofthe Žilina – Teplička large railway marshallingyard. Company revenues from <strong>for</strong>eigncontracts amount to approximately 20% ofour overall revenues, a fact that is very important<strong>for</strong> the future. Other important factorsinclude the development of telecommunicationand in<strong>for</strong>mation technologies,a new public address system networks, localand railway radio network systems andour participation in building the GSM-R andCAB radio system. All of this was accomplishedlast year.Among our other activities, I would like toemphasize here our deliveries <strong>for</strong> the PragueMetro and our activities in the area of roadtelematics <strong>for</strong> cities and municipalities inboth the Czech Republic as well as abroad.Our revenues in these areas have been alsogrowing and have partially compensatedthe losses in the railway sector.Technological development played a veryimportant role in the past period. The significantfinancial resources that we have investedthis year (as we do every year) into technologicaldevelopment are at least comparableto our European and international competitors.Some of these projects, which we havealready put or will soon put into trial operation,include the ESA 44 electronic interlocking,the new PZZ-J level crossing system,the RBA-10 radio-block <strong>for</strong> secondary lines,the LS 06/07 automatic train protection, newGTN systems, new EZS and VNPN functionalitiesreacting to accidents (registering lossof shunt and warning against trains illegallypassing through signals), diagnostic systems,devices <strong>for</strong> Metro and many other systemsand their applications. We consider as a veryimportant step the completion of the ETCSpilot project, where we applied our own solutionsand subsystems.Another very positive step was the consolidationof our subsidiaries, a process that hasprovided positive <strong>results</strong> not only in terms ofeconomy but also in education, production,development and other areas. It is necessary7