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In what looks like one of the biggest deals of the year, two originally Czech computer antivirus security companies have announced they are getting together with the likelihood of putting Prague and the Czech Republic permanently on the map as the home of one of the world’s leaders in the sector.

Competitiveness is one of those vogue terms that appears to be employing a lot of grey matter around the world. And the Czech Republic is no exception with the government, business groups, and recently one lawmaker from the upper house of parliament, the Senate, looking over the entrails of the local economy to determine how it’s doing compared with the rest of the world and what the future holds.

The British vote on whether to stay or leave the EU takes place Thursday with most recent polls suggesting a very close race indeed. And its no exaggeration to say that that the British vote is being followed with trepidation across the rest of Europe, including Prague, with the economic and political repercussions likely to be substantial.

After the worries and shakiness of the last decade or so in Europe’s banking and financial sector, financial stability is no longer seen as a given but as something that has to be constantly safeguarded and, where necessary, regulated for. The Czech Republic came out largely unscathed from Europe’s last financial crisis, no large banks were bailed out and the biggest institutions are regarded as significant cash cows for their foreign owners. But the national bank has identified risk areas where it would like to see tighter control to make sure

The European Single Market is one of the achievements of the political and economic partnership that is the EU. But many companies and some governments now feel short changed over the delivery of its full benefits and are calling for urgent reform as a new digital revolution looms on the horizon.

Prague last week hosted an international symposium about Smart Cities. The concept is a fairly simple one: to marry the latest information and communication technologies so that cities can run more efficiently and in a more environment and citizen friendly fashion. And Czech universities, banks, companies, and towns and cities are taking part in the moves to try and harness technology so that urban areas operate differently.

In the words of Mark Twain, you should buy up land because they ain’t producing it any more. One might quibble with the accuracy of that statement then and now, because as the Dutch have amply proved land can be reclaimed. But the message, especially for the landlocked Czech Republic, holds good.

The Czech Republic has just been through its annual economic monitoring session with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Basically, the international watchdog on economic good housekeeping and prudence, often accused of pushing an overly free market agenda, looks over the books and government performance over the last 12 months. The IMF published its findings after talking them over with the government.

A raft of economic figures have come out in the last days giving a much clearer picture of how the Czech economy is faring in the first months of 2016 and going forward. On the one hand unemployment this week dropped to its lowest level since January 2009. The 4 percentage point drop took the headline figure for April down to 5.7 percent. But there are other signs that the fast growth in some sections of the industrial sector is faltering as manufacturers run into problems finding suitable staff and meeting orders.

The Czech Republic was a latecomer to the market for energy saving houses and buildings, so called passive developments. By most accounts it was Germany and Scandinavia that developed and ran with the concept in the early 1990s. But the Czech market has grown rapidly in the last decade and the country can even claim to be showing the way to neighbours such as Slovakia and those further to the East.