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Czech companies notched up record export success in 2017. But building on that performance this year is likely to be a major challenge with companies probably needing to break into new markets.

Czech textile and clothing companies last year recorded their best results in the past 12 years, the daily Hospodářské noviny wrote on Thursday.

An enormous number of Czechs – almost 10 percent of those over the age of 15 – are in trouble with debt-collecting bailiffs. Indeed, more than 150,000 people in this country are facing a minimum of 10 distraint orders, according to the latest edition of a map of such cases released on Tuesday.

Public Private Partnerships have had a short and not very glorious history in the Czech Republic as a means of financing major infrastructure projects. But so-called PPPs now appear back in fashion with the Ministry of Transport plotting the use of private capital to pave the way for one major highway.

Czech hotels, guesthouses and camp sites registered a record 20.1 million tourists last year, according to the Czech Statistics Office. The number of foreign visitors was 10.2 million, which is almost equivalent to the entire population of the Czech Republic.

The Czech retail sector not including cars recorded a 5.6-percent year-on-year rise in revenues in 2017, according to official figures released this week. Internet and mail order sales were the biggest single drivers of that increase, growing by more than 21 percent.

The Czech Republic registered a balance of trade surplus of CZK 152.6 billion last year, according to freshly released official data. While the figure was lower than that for 2016, the country’s exporters had an impressive year, setting new records.

One rate rise down, probably one still to go this year. That is how Czech central bank governor Jiří Rusnok summed up the situation after the bank board took the largely expected decision to raise the key interest rate by 0.25 percentage points to 0.75 percent.

Executives at the semi-state power giant CEZ want to divide the company in two, Hospodářské noviny reported on Thursday. The state would retain control over CEZ’s coal, nuclear and gas operations, while the new firm would handle renewable energy and distribution, the newspaper said.

The average price rise for new flat in the Czech capital Prague rose last year by around 19.1 percent to reach around 85,223 crowns per square metre, according to a group of the leading developers and builders of new flats in the city.