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The Czech National Bank has been forced to bring out its heavy weapon, in the form of currency interventions, in the last months to keep the crown below its ceiling. But lower inflationary pressure than expected now means that the speculators who bought up the currency on the hope of quick gains now appear to be quitting their crown positions. That means the pressure could be off the crown and the bank for the forseeable future.

The Třinecké železárny steelworks has won a lucrative contract worth 15 billion crowns for a project of railway route construction in Azerbaijan, the company’s CEO Jan Czudek revealed on Wednesday after a visit by the Czech head-of-state Miloš Zeman. The president reportedly helped seal the deal during a recent visit to the former Soviet country.

Czech engineering giants have agreed to pool their forces and efforts to grab a bigger share of world nuclear contracts and safeguard their know-how during lean times.

The city of Prague is preparing a system enabling the recycling of waste oil from households. Containers for used vegetable fat should appear in the city’s collection points by the year 2017. The system has already been successfully introduced in other municipalities across the Czech Republic.

Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka has asked for a national strategy in coping with drought to be concluded by 2016. This should be preceded by a debate on the problems and priorities of individual regions and proposed changes in the spectrum of agricultural commodities grown.

Azerbaijan is one of around two dozen countries of ‘interest’ where the Czech Republic believes it should make an effort to boost its export performance. Head of state Miloš Zeman prioritized that goal with a recently concluded official visit but oil prices will probably have a substantial impact on how many contracts will result.

A proposed mega-deal between the world’s first and second biggest brewers will be closely followed in the Czech Republic with premier export brewer Plzeňský Prazdroj directly concerned and the longer term fate of Budějovický Budvar also probably in play.

Škoda Auto has shown off new versions of its Superb models in a bid to boost ebbing sales of the top of the range model. Overall sales are still strong but a drop off in China could be a cause for concern if it is not reversed in the coming months.

The volume of Czech exports to Russia took a slide in 2015 as a result of the sanctions against Russia and the country’s own retaliatory measures. According to figures released by the Czech Trade and Industry Ministry Czech exports to Russia fell by 32.8 percent year-on- year to 45.2 billion crowns in the first seven months of this year. Due to a faster drop in Czech exports than imports, the deficit in trade with Russia increased by 7.5 billion to 18.5 billion crowns.

According to some Czech reports, the deal selling small Czech and Slovak bank Zuno Bank to the second richest Russian oligarch just needs to be inked. Michail Fridman usually targets energy and telecoms assets, so the possible Czech connection raises some questions.