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The annual budget ritual has started with a mean looking opening bid by the Ministry of Finance together with expected savings in spending. That bid will be fought over during the next months but the deciding factor will be how government revenues shape up.

Confirmation has come of top level talks between the Czech government and representatives of Polish oil refining and petro-chem giant PKN Orlen. The scenario that the Poles would like to plot does not take much fathoming.

A breakthrough in foreign sales for the Czech Republic’s biggest aviation company is again being promised. But after hopes being dashed so many times before, Aero Vodochody will have to wait until the final deal is done to be sure.

Czech industrial production is going from strength to strength and there are now clear signs that bosses are recruiting seriously to cover their ever expanding order books.

No longer the undisputed leader on the Czech commercial television market, TV Nova saw its revenues and profits drop sharply last year. But there are expectations both will rebound in spite of sharp cost cutting by the parent group.

The on-demand streaming technology that has caused a revolution in the American film and television industries has yet to catch on in a big way in the Czech Republic, with many viewers either sticking to traditional formats or downloading illegally from the internet.

A wave of good news about the Czech economy has resurrected the possibility that the country’s rating might be edged upwards and, as a result, the costs of servicing the country’s public debt could come down by several billion crowns.

Last September coal producer New World Resources announced it was closing the Paskov coal mine in Frýdek-Místek. It said the only remaining active mine in the Ostrava region, which is run by its daughter company OKD, was making a loss and likely to remain uncompetitive in the medium term.

The Czech government is considering plans to re-open a uranium mine near Jihlava after deposits at the country’s sole currently operating Rožná mine are exhausted. During his visit to the site on Monday, Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said the government was ready to support future uranium mining which would create hundreds of jobs in the region.

Czech and other governments have a wish list for how they can fill in the gaps in current gas pipeline infrastructure and supply to diminish dependence on Russian gas supplies and Ukrainian pipelines. But the wish lists are already coming into conflict with reality.