Top Czech Business News - Prague Daily Monitor

The Finance Ministry in the 2011 budget proposal submitted to the government earlier this week raised revenues and expenditures by CZK 127.7 billion. The planed budget deficit of CZK 135 billion has been retained.

The Czech Republic's state debt will grow by one-tenth to CZK 1,472bn in 2011, which will be in absolute terms an increase of CZK 136.2bn compared to this year, according to the Finance Ministry's data contained in the state budget draft for next year.

The Finance Ministry plans five state bond issues for CZK 30bn and wants to issue treasury bills for CZK 25bn in Q4 this year, according to an issuance calendar published by the ministry Wednesday.

Gas distributor Pražská plynárenská has changed its plan to keep gas prices flat in the fourth quarter of this year and will cut them by one percent or more for households as of October 1, Miroslav Vránek of the sales director office told ČTK Tuesday.

Debts of Czech households at banks and financial institutions rose by CZK 5.487bn to CZK 1,017bn in July this year, which is a year-on-year increase of CZK 74.293bn, the Czech National Bank said Tuesday.

Developer Orco Property Group made a profit of EUR 238m (almost CZK 6bn) at end-June this year against last year's loss of EUR 199m (CZK 5bn), the firm said Tuesday.

The Czech crown weakened to both main world currencies Monday, losing 9 hellers to CZK 24.84/EUR and 10 hellers to CZK 19.57/$ at around 5pm, according to the server Patria Online.

Defence Minister Alexandr Vondra said Monday he can see no reason for soldiers to demonstrate against the planned cuts in the armed forces' budget.

The Czech banking sector would not be jeopardised even in the case of very unfavourable economic and financial sector development, the central bank said on its website referring to the new stress tests.

People employed at health care facilities and schools will join the 21 September demonstration of policemen and firefighters against the wage cuts and changes in the Labour Code that the government plans within its austerity measures.

Economic results of petrochemical group Unipetrol for the first half of this year should be better than a year ago, say analysts polled by ČTK who expect an improvement by net and operating profit and in sales.

Employers welcome PM Petr Nečas's proposal for radical changes in the Labour Code, while trade unions oppose them and economists favour higher flexibility of the labour market but fear potential protests. In an interview for the business daily Hospodářské noviny Nečas said he would like an amendment to the Labour Code containing, for example, notice of dismissal without a reason, unlimited row of fixed-term work contracts and lower influence of the unions.

Budget cuts will cause the sacking of about 5-8% of civil servants paid from the state budget, Czech Prime Minister Petr Nečas told TV station Prima Saturday.

Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek has asked the European Commission for an exception from the EU's rules for the collection of VAT on motor fuels, he said Saturday. The step is to prevent tax evasions which are reaching up to CZK 8bn annually.

The PPF group has ended its local media project as it has sold its PPF Media company to investor Richard Benýšek, PPF told ČTK Friday.

Nearly two thirds of Czech companies say that, from their point of view, the economic crisis is not yet over, 27% are of the opinion that it is subsiding and less than 10% believe it is over, according to a poll the Economic Chamber made in June.

Czech farmers may break even this year but a loss cannot be excluded, Agricultural Chamber president Jan Veleba said Saturday.

Savings of Czech households have increased fourfold to over CZK 1,500bn since the foundation of the independent Czech Republic in the year 1993, according to a report published by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.

The winners of this year's local elections in the Czech Republic to take place in October will have a harder position than their predecessors from October 2006, according to Labour and Social Affairs Ministry data.

The Czech National Bank (CNB) will likely raise the benchmark interest rate by 0.25 percentage point to one percent at the end of this year or at the beginning of 2011, central bank Board member Robert Holman told server Týden.cz.