"This is not only a strategic alliance, it is not only a military alliance but it is also a business alliance that we want to promote," Czech Deputy Foreign Minister Tomas Pojar told a meeting that is to lay the ground for a cooperation agreement.

Czech Deputy Defence Minister Martin Bartak told the two-day missile shield seminar: "We need specific projects."

"In less than a year, negotiations have made good progress," he added, but regretted that the "partnership has been only on a political level".

The Czech Republic and Poland have difficult decisions to make on hosting parts of the shield, amid Russian fury at the prospect of US interceptor missiles based so close to its borders.

Washington is currently in negotiations with Warsaw to install 10 interceptor missile sites in Poland by 2012 to ward off potential attacks by so-called rogue states, notably Iran.

The US plan calls for associated radar stations in the Czech Republic.

It has scant backing among Czechs and Poles, who fear that housing the missile shield would make them targets of attacks by extremists and sour relations with former Cold War ally Russia.

Top US officials and leaders in America's defence industry had come over for the Prague seminar.

Over 40 Czech companies and institutes were also lined up to attend the meeting where they will be wooed by US defence and aeronautics giants like Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.

"The aim... is to offer the possibility of Czech-US cooperation in the areas of research, development and industrial production of anti-missile defence systems," the Czech foreign ministry has said.

Nancy Morgan of the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) said talks were in "a broad exploration phase".

Negotiations between Prague and Washington over a framework agreement paving the way for Czech involvement in the missile shield was expected to be launched by the two sides on Friday.

Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek hopes to put an agreement on the shield before lawmakers as early as April.

But his new Polish counterpart Donald Tusk is cranking up demands for security guarantees and other concessions from Washington and distancing himself from the unquestioned pro-shield stance of his predecessor.

The US missile defence budget stands at 10 billion dollars (6.77 billion euros), with the cost of deploying the system in the Czech Republic and Poland estimated by the MDA at between four and 4.5 billion dollars.

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