In the year of 1968, when self-proclaimed "brotherhood nations" the Soviet Union and four communist states sent tanks to Prague, Japan sent a private enterprise there; that is to say, one of the largest Japanese general trading companies Mitsui &amp; Co. started operating in the capital of the Czech Republic. A few years later the end of the Cold War, in 1993, Japan External Trade Organization, which was authorized as a government-related organization to promote Japanese export, import and investment, newly established their office in Prague. Thereafter, two of major Japanese manufacturers found their facilities, namely a television factory of Matsushita in Plzeň in 1996 and a polyester fabric factory of Toray in Prostějov in 1997.