Business | All stories

The Kolín-based car builder TPCA (comprising Toyota, Peugeot, and Citroën) last year increased revenues year-on-year by more than 30 percent to 39.3 billion crowns. The company posted a gross profit of 366.5 million, according to news website iHned.

Czech fish farmers are set to receive significant support in the form of European funds. As of next October, breeders will be able to draw up to 1.1 billion crowns from the Agriculture ministry’s Operational Programme, largely funded by the European Union.

Leading Czech mortgage lenders have signaled that home loans are set to rise with the era of record low rates coming to an end.

The Czech Republic does not have a rosy reputation for its past treatment of small or minority shareholders. Many have been treated poorly when ‘squeezed out’ by the majority owners. And the moves by PPF, the majority owner of telecoms giant O2, has raised suspicions they are getting a raw deal again.

A well-respected Czech energy analyst says the Cabinet has got it all wrong with its long term energy strategy but reckons it will confront reality soon and have to go back to the drawing board.

Moves to unshackle the European milk market and end production quotas don’t seem to be turning out as expected with prices plummeting, export markets underperforming and shoppers still paying dear.

Cobra, a special team established to fight tax evasion just a year ago, has produced convincing results. Assessing its first year in action, police president Tomáš Tuhý, said the team had done a good job, preventing tax evasion to the tune of 1.9 billion crowns.

The number of people out of work in the Czech Republic is lower than at any point in the last six years, according to figures released on Monday by the country’s Office of Labour. In May 465,689 people were jobless, the fewest since June 2009.

According to some media reports, Czech trade relations with Saudi Arabia have hit a hitch because of the Czech head of state’s previous remarks. But the reports have been dismissed as distorted by the Czech prime minister and the recent state of bilateral trade suggests a surge in two-way trade.

Twenty years ago no self-respecting beer drinker in the Czech Republic would be seen dead swigging beer from a can. There was a widespread perception that bottled beer is superior and beer in cans loses its quality, tasting flat and acquiring a metallic tang. That is fast changing and breweries are expanding their packaging capacities to meet growing demand for canned beer.