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Czech and Polish Transport Ministers have signed an intergovernmental agreement on the connection of the Czech D47 motorway with Polish A1. Poland is to build the 50-km part of the A1 motorway to the Czech border by 2008.

An extraordinary general meeting of the Czech power utility CEZ on Monday rejected an energy sector restructuring plan put forth by the Czech cabinet. The plan included an acquisition by the state-owned energy utility CEZ of the government's majority stakes in six of the eight regional electricity distribution companies and minority stakes in the other two. In exchange, the Czech National Property Fund was supposed to acquire a majority in the company CEPS which controls the power transmission system and is currently controlled by CEZ.

Czech hop-growers expect a decrease in revenues due to the appreciation of the Czech currency. The chairman of the Association of Hop-Growers of the Czech Republic, Zdenek Rosa said hop-growers had signed contracts with traders for some 6000 tonnes of hops at an average price of 140,000 CZK per tonne.

One of the largest Czech banks, Ceska sporitelna savings bank, is about to take its stocks off the Prague Stock Exchange or PSE, joining the numbers of other high-quality stocks that have left the market. The only large Czech bank to continue trading on the prestigious main market of the Prague Stock Exchange is Komercni banka. The question remains for how long.

The Czech national railway operator, Czech Railways, posted a loss of 4 billion CZK in 2001, 800 million less than in the previous year. The figure is 1.3 billion lower than loss envisaged by the company's board of directors.

Economic growth in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States will slow this year, with Poland and Russia acting as a drag on the region, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said in its bi-annual Transition Report.

The Czech Producer Price Index decreased in April by 0.5 percent month-on-month after stagnating in March. In year-on-year terms, producer prices were 0.1 percent lower than in April 2001.

The lower house of the Czech parliament has approved spending revenues from privatisation of state assets on the purchase of 24 new fighter jets for the Czech Air Force, which is the country's biggest military contract to date. The measure has yet to be approved by the Senate, and ratified by President Vaclav Havel.