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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.

Meanwhile, Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman said it was highly unlikely that the Czech government would manage to privatise Czech Telecom before the upcoming June general elections.

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.

The Czech unemployment rate decreased to 8.8 percent in April from 9.1 percent in March. In April 2001, unemployment stood at 8.3 percent. The development is in line with expectations of economic analysts.

Productivity is currently on top of the agenda of business leaders from all sectors. A recent productivity study showed that the majority of businesses across the world were only operating at productivity levels of between 50 and 60 percent. In this week's edition of Economics Report, we take a look at how Czech companies are doing in this respect.