Top Czech Business News - Prague Daily Monitor

A total of 412 joint-stock companies have decided to squeeze out minority shareholders in the Czech Republic since July 2005 for which they have paid CZK 16.49 billion, Česká kapitálová informacni agentura (ČEKIA) agency told ČTK Tuesday.

Czech Transport Minister Vít Bárta is pondering over raising of tolls for lorries and prices of motorway stickers and at the same cutting charges in railway freight transport, the daily Mladá fronta Dnes (MfD) said Tuesday.

A total of 325,581 guests visited Czech spas in H1 2010, which is a rise of 5% against the same year-ago period, the agency CzechTourism said in a press release Tuesday.

Czech industrial producer prices grew by 2.3% in July year-on-year against 2% in June, while in month-on-month comparison they remained unchanged, the Czech Statistical Office said Monday.

Czech import prices rose by 4.9% and export prices by 2% year-on-year in June, the Czech Statistical Office (CSU) said Monday.

Real estate firm VGP generated H1 profit of EUR 9.7m against loss of EUR 11.7m in the same year-ago period and gross lease income grew by 44.7% to EUR 13.5m, the firm said in a press release Monday.

IBM has won the Health Ministry's tender worth CZK 0.5 billion for a new information system, which is one of the biggest IT public orders this year, the economic weekly Euro reports in its latest issue out on Monday.

A total of 105,812 customers changed their electricity supplier in the first half of this year, more than twice as many as in the same period a year ago, according to data published in the website of the Czech Electricity Market Operator (OTE).

President Václav Klaus considers the government's plan to cut and tax his salary necessary, however he finds it amusing that he has been asked to make the biggest sacrifice of all constitutional officials, he told Mladá fronta Dnes.

The Czech Government Office's budget will be CZK 61.5 million lower in 2011 than this year in line with the budget cuts planned by the centre-right coalition cabinet of the Civic Democrats (ODS), TOP 09 and Public Affairs (VV), government spokesman Martin Kupka told ČTK.

Expenditures on the state debt will rise by CZK 3.73bn to CZK 79.59bn next year, which is about 7.6% of the planned state budget expenditures of CZK 1,052.12bn, according to the draft state budget for 2011 approved by the Czech government on Wednesday.

Czech GDP growth was pulled mainly by industry and exports, while low household consumption was slowing it down moderately, analysts polled by CTK agreed Friday.

Czech economy grew by 2.2% year-on-year in the second quarter of this year, and by 0.8% against the first quarter, according to Czech Statistical Office preliminary data made public Friday.

The Czech National Bank has improved its estimate of development of public finance deficit to 5.4% of GDP for this year, while for next year it expects worsening to 6 percent, according to a report on inflation made public by the CNB Friday.

The government secretly scraped state contributions to EU subsidies for Czech regions and the regions would therefore lose CZK 2 billion in 2011, regions' association chairman Michal Hašek said yesterday.

Insurer Komerční pojišťovna collected CZK 5.16 billion in insurance premiums in the first half of this year, a year-on-year growth of 180%, the company has told ČTK.

The Czech economy grew by nearly 1% in the second quarter of this year compared with the previous three months and by more than 2% in year-on-year comparison, according to estimates of analysts polled by ČTK yesterday.

Former Industry Minister Martin Říman and Finance Minister Eduard Janota yesterday became new members of the supervisory board of power company ČEZ, ČEZ Spokesman Ladislav Kříž informed ČTK.

The Chamber of Deputies will have to cut expenditures by CZK 103 million in 2011 while the Senate will have CZK 24 million less at its disposal than in 2010, parliament officials told ČTK yesterday.

The government has approved a 2011 draft budget with a deficit of CZK 135 billion and a deficit of public finance amounting to 4.6% of GDP, Prime Minister Petr Nečas said yesterday. He said that this is no reform, but an austerity budget, adding that if the government did not set limits, the deficit would grow to CZK 210 billion, or 6.7% of GDP.