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A Czech company is following on the coat tails of the Facebook and social media boom by developing and selling the monitoring tools and analyses that can tell companies which brands or campaigns are hitting or missing the mark or where they are running into trouble.

The UK frozen food retailer Iceland recently opened its first store in Prague, its third location in the Czech Republic. The popular chain wants Czechs to acquire a taste for its frozen staples; if they do, Iceland has big plans for its Czech operation, with an appetite to expand to other countries in the region as well.

Czech exports to Russia have grown in value by more than ten times in the past decade. Czech companies see Russia as a key target territory, and are now seeking the backing of the new government in their efforts to further increase trade with the country. Visa issues, access to credit, and political lobbying are some of the areas where Czech firms believe the government could assist them, hinting that toning down the human rights agenda would also help.

This week marks 20 years since the launch of TV Nova, the first Czech commercial television channel. A huge success since the beginning, it introduced viewers to new forms of entertainment and news coverage. The station later suffered from a conflict between its US investors and its CEO which ended in arbitration, marking marked the end of an era for TV Nova. In this edition of Marketplace, I talk to leading media studies expert Jan Jirák of Charles University about the station’s rise and fall and its lasting impact on the Czech media scene.

Prague is one of Europe’s top tourist destinations, with an annual five million visitors. For some of them, however, the combination of the city’s night life and cheap alcohol is a far bigger attraction than its historic heritage. In parts of the city centre, severe problems with noisy and drunk tourists have prompted the authorities to consider imposing a 10 PM closing time deadline on some of the notorious watering holes, a move which has earned them accusations of reviving communist-era rules.

The Czech Republic’s biggest national park has become a battleground for those fighting over its future development. Academics and green groups this week delivered what they hope will be a decisive rebuttal to what they see as moves to open up the park to developers and loggers.

The Czech passenger rail market is one that appears on the verge of great upheaval even though competition is still very much the exception rather than the rule. Better known as a coach company on its home market in Britain, National Express, has just set up a Czech subsidiary and sees itself as one of several rail operators that could eventually be competing for big city and small town passenger services.

Despite predictions that the Czech economy would emerge out of its longest recession on record in the second half of 2013, the recovery has so far been only sluggish. Third quarter figures have even suggested the chances of another dip. But Jan Bureš, the chief economist for Era Poštovní spořitelna, believes the recovery is tangible and based on stabilized domestic demand and increasing exports. The emerging coalition’s pledge to increase public investment will be a key factor behind the return to growth in 2014, according to Mr. Bureš.

In recent years, corruption has been a huge issue in the Czech Republic. Indeed, manipulated public tenders, fraud and other forms of economic crime are estimated to cost the country up 100 billion crowns a year. A new study by the international consultancy firm KPMG, entitled Global Profiles of the Fraudster, takes a closer look at the perpetrators of graft, and how they differ in various parts of the world. But who is a typical Czech fraudster? That’s a question I discussed with Maroš Holodňák, the head of forensic services at KPMG’s Czech

Czech retailers and economists had reason to be optimistic when sales figures for September showed a 4 percent growth. But last week, the Czech Statistics Office announced that in October retail sales saw a year-on-year decline of 0.6 percent. This may put a slight damper on the hopes for a steady recovery from the economic recession, but many hope that the recent monetary interventions and the pre-holiday shopping season will put sales growth back on track.