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The draft budget for next year, approved this week by the Czech government, projects a deficit of some 2.3 percent of the country’s GDP. Government officials say the budget will allow for higher public investments and hikes in public sector salaries and pensions. But critics argue the budget is unambitious, and a missed opportunity to narrow the Czech public finance deficit at a time of an economic recovery.

A Czech business delegation has visited Iran on a fact-finding mission, the first of its kind in recent decades. Some 20 Czech firms, from machinery companies to pharmaceuticals producers, took part in the trip which could herald future closer cooperation between Iran and the Czech Republic, provided that sanctions imposed on Tehran over its controversial nuclear programme are lifted.

American Jeffrey Zamoff has been living in Prague for six years, earning his living as an English teacher and collecting and selling old vinyl records for pleasure. Two years ago, he decided to enlarge his offer with used English books for kids and discovered a hole in the market. His hobby soon turned into a small business, and besides running an internet shop, he has just opened a brick and mortar shop in the city. When I met Jeffrey Zamoff, I asked him how he came up with the idea in the first place:

Plans to expand the Czech nuclear power plant in Temelín have been put on hold, with a previous tender cancelled over the project’s dubious viability. A Russian-led bid competed with a US-Japanese offer for the multi-billion deal. The Czech government is set to decide by the end of the year whether the project will be revived – and with the Russians now presumably out of the game, Chinese and Korean firms are eyeing the lucrative contract.

Prague has recently become the latest city where the smart-phone based car-hailing service Uber has become available. Since its launch in San Francisco in 2009, the app has become popular around the world. However, in many cities, the company faces protests by disgruntled taxi drivers as well as official bans over safety concerns. I sat down with Uber’s head of expansion for central Europe Patrick Studener, and first asked him why they picked Prague as their first location in the region.

The Czech coalition and opposition parties have reached a compromise on civil service reform, paving the way for Parliament to adopt the long-overdue legislation. But the deal has come under fire from some Social Democrats as well as anti-corruption advocates, who say the bill has been eviscerated and will likely fall short of improving the country’s public administration.

Czechs boast a long and rich brewing tradition which they have often shared with the rest of the world. Czech-built breweries now exist in countries such as Georgia, Ukraine, South Africa and Vietnam. But one Czech firm has ventured to a country few would associate with a love of lager: North Korea. The Hradec Králové-based ZVU POTEZ last year built a micro-brewery in North Korea’s special economic zone of Rason, and now hopes the deal will lead to more opportunities in the deeply repressive country. I spoke to the firm’s commercial director Martin

The Czech Republic has secured another major foreign investment with the South Korean car parts maker Hyundai Mobis signing a deal to build a factory outside Ostrava. It’s the third large South Korean investment project in the Czech Republic – but new EU rules on incentives could make it harder for the country to attract big foreign investors in the future.

The selection of a Czech candidate for the European Commission has been the subject of a major contest on the Czech political scene this summer. But the eventual nomination of Regional Development Minister Věra Jourová has been described as a win-win situation for all parties involved, as well as for the Czech Republic, whose candidate has a good chance of being put in charge of one of her preferred portfolios.

Several Chinese pharmaceutical firms have recently sent their envoys to Prague to test the ground for potential cooperation. One opportunity eyed by the Chinese firms is making the Czech Republic the base of their operations in Europe, eventually expanding their business to other EU member states.