Business | All stories

Czech privately held company Energetický a Průmyslový Holding (EPH) has become the favourite to become the biggest player in Slovakia’s electricity market after Italian energy giant ENEL said it had been selected for exclusive talks over the purchase of its majority stake in Slovenské Elektrárne. The talks could result within weeks in a deal to buy up the shares.

The planned giant investment of Taiwanese mobile, tablet and camera manufacturer HTC in Brno promising to create up to a thousand new jobs is falling apart within months of it being announced. Dozens of the company’s employees have received notices to quit before the planned European service centre was even launched, Czech Television reported on Monday.

While the Czech Republic has recently basked in figures showing as the fastest growing economy in the European Union with a 4.4 percent rise in GDP in the second quarter, there is no threat at the moment that the economy is overheating. That is the conclusion from the governor of the Czech national Bank, Miroslav Singer, in the latest of his lively blogs on macroeconomic perspectives from his particular hot seat.

In ten days’ time or so school-age children will find themselves returning to the classroom after long summer holidays, the hottest on record since 1880. In the run-up, parents will feel a new burn – this time in their pocket, as they line up to buy school supplies. According to a report by Czech Radio, parents will spend – on average – at least 2,000 crowns on supplies and the parents of first-graders even more: children’s “aktovky” - ergonomically-designed schoolbags required by students, cost that alone.

Authorities in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad announced this week that they had destroyed 20 tons of tomatoes from the Czech Republic, that were falsely labelled as Macedonian. Russian authorities investigated the shipment, and after allegedly receiving information from Macedonia that the respective shipment was not registered with them, ordered its elimination.

A new study by KPMG, based on data from 2014, reveals cigarettes in the Czech Republic are among the cheapest in Europe. While Czechs, on average, pay 75 crowns for a pack, in Norway, smokers more than three times as much.

Although 94 percent of Czechs consider themselves to be financially responsible, many still make painful mistakes in managing their personal finances. According to data from the Labour and Social Affairs Ministry many graduates who are unable to find jobs take out loans and set up small businesses, only to see them go bankrupt in a relatively short time. The age of people who file for insolvency has dropped from an average 35 to 28 years.

The Czech Republic has the fastest expanding economy in Europe, with a freshly issued first estimate putting year-on-year growth in the second quarter at 4.4 percent.

Slovakia appears to have won the beauty contest to be the site for a new factory for luxury car maker Jaguar Land Rover. Poland looks like it was in second place with the Czech Republic in third. Details of the full deal and incentives could make it clear whether the Czech bid suffered from lower permitted aid ceilings than both Slovakia and Poland.

Czech engineering group Vítkovice has reportedly won a major order for building a new coal-fired power plant on the Pacific island of New Caledonia. The order could open up other possibilities in this previously not very promising part of the world for the Ostrava-based company.