Czech Television (ČT) presenter Václav Moravec claims that the current Minister of Health, Jan Blatný, will quit and leave his position in 14 days. Moreover, ČT also claims that the current Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, Andrej Babiš, will take over the Health Ministry department and that Blatný will be replaced by the former head of Ministry, Roman Prymula. Prymula was the Minister of Health for the duration of a month last year in 2020, however, he has since then resigned after being spotted leaving a restaurant during Covid-19 lockdown. Additionally, ČT claims that Prymula has been attending government meetings in the past weeks. Prime Minister Babiš has publicly denied the information given by ČT, stating that he has no intention of leaving or replacing the current Minister of Health. “It’s all just speculation and gossip on the Václav Moravec show. I suppose he was trying to raise the profile of his show, which is not much talked about anymore”, commented PM Babiš. President of the Chamber of Deputies, Vondráček, has also publicly stated that the show’s claims are all just gossip and rumors and that there has not been any information between government officials claiming that this would...
New mortgages in the Czech Republic grew by 34.3% year-on-year in 2020 to a record volume of 217 billion crowns, despite the global coronavirus pandemic’s impact on lending, data from the Czech National Bank showed on Friday. The central bank has been monitoring the mortgage and housing market in recent years as a potential source of inflationary pressures caused by soaring property prices. House prices were 17% overpriced on average, the bank said in November as it warned against risks to both banks and the broader economy. Low interest rates supported the demand for mortgages, as the central bank has kept its main two-week repo rate at 0.25% since last May after it had slashed it by 200 basis points during the first coronavirus wave in spring. The bank also eased some of the limits on mortgage lending in April, like the share of the loan to the property price (loan-to-value, LTV) or the maximum share of payments on the clients’ income (debt-servicing-to-income, DSTI). Overall, new and refinanced mortgages rose by 39.6% year-on-year to 266 billion crowns, the data showed, while household loans added just 0.8% to 264.5 billion crowns.
EU regulators should loosen state aid rules further to make it easier for companies hit by the COVID-19 pandemic to receive support, the governments of Austria, Denmark, and the Czech Republic said on Thursday. The European Commission, the EU competition enforcer, relaxed its rules in March 2020 but the three-member states said limits still existed on the levels of government aid, particularly in the case of direct grants. “European businesses will face severe economic consequences well into 2021,” the trio said in an open letter published in the Financial Times. “Yet each passing month raises the amount of COVID aid that businesses have received, bringing them ever closer to the state aid limit ceilings. “To end this uncertainty, we suggest that the ceilings for direct grants and uncovered fixed costs be raised significantly,” they said. The letter was written by Denmark’s acting minister for industry, businesses, and financial affairs, Dan Joergensen, along with Karel Havlíček, deputy prime minister of the Czech Republic, and Austrian Finance Minister Gernot Bluemel. EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager is currently seeking feedback from member countries to extend the looser rules to the end of 2021 and allow more funding to businesses crippled by the pandemic....
The latest figures show that the Prague hotel market has borne the brunt of the coronavirus crisis in Europe. Hotel industry in Prague recorded the steepest decline in average revenue per room in 2020, down 84.6% on the previous year, with only Barcelona, Rome, and Lisbon being impaired on a similar scale. Even so, confidence in the Prague hotel market and its long-term potential is hardly waning, as underscored by the unflagging interest not only among investors, who are always on the lookout for good opportunities to buy but also among hotel operators, who have identified Prague as the main target of their activities. “The Czech authorities did not follow the example set by many other countries in using local hotels to accommodate health professionals or as makeshift hospitals. All this hastened Prague’s status as one of the most devastated hotel markets in Europe. Having said that, we must remember that these are temporary factors not directly related to the tourism market, which should recover quickly once the virus has been brought under control,” said Bořivoj Vokřínek, Strategic Advisory, Head of Hospitality Research EMEA, Cushman & Wakefield. Results reported for last summer, when rules were eased for a while, signalled...
Statistics show that 15% of the employees who work in the Czech Republic are foreigners, and they constitute a substantial number across various sectors. In the past decade, from 2010 to 2019, the number of foreigners in the Czech labor market has tripled. Evidently, the Covid-19 crisis had interrupted this growth, but it has only been a temporary stunt. These figures have been drawn up from statistical records documented by the Czech Statistical Office (ČSÚ). Dalibor Holý, from the ČSÚ, has commented that the number of employees would not have increased without the presence of foreigners, and he correlates this statement to the fact that many Czech citizens are seniors and past their prime, while young adults and those who are fit to work constitute a much smaller number of the Czech populace. “From 2010 to 2019 the number of foreign employees increased by 407,000, while the number of Czech employees decreased by 63,000”, said Dalibor. Industries that have seen a rise in the number of foreign workers include the agriculture and forestry industry, with a rise from 4 to 17% since the past decade. Meanwhile, in administration, 54% of the workers in 2019 were foreigners. In construction, foreigners now...
When it comes to company closings, 2020 was a year for the record books. In 2020, 16,111 companies ceased to exist in the Czech Republic, 353 more than the year before and at the highest number in the country’s history. On the other hand, 27,228 businesses were established, the lowest number in the past six years. A total of 11,117 companies have been added in the Czech Republic, which is the least since 2003. The data were published on Tuesday, January 26 by Czech Credit Bureau (CRIF). The number of shut-down companies began to increase significantly during 2015 and the trend continued last year, although it was partly dampened by government interventions. Last year, the number of newly established companies also decreased, 2842 fewer than in 2019. “This significant year-on-year decline was registered mainly in March, April, and October,” said CRIF analyst Věra Kameníčková. The number of limited companies being set up in the country was on a steadily growing trajectory until 2017 when it peaked at 31,204. However, the growth registered a slight decline in 2018. During 2020, most companies were established in Prague (12,844), in the South Moravian Region (3,339) and in the Central Bohemian Region (2,169). Most...
Ensuring stability in the wider neighborhood of the European Union with regard to migration and conflict, especially in Africa, will be another priority, says Petříček. According to Minister of Foreign Affairs Tomáš Petříček, the priorities of the Czech Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of 2022 will be the enlargement of the European bloc, migration, ensuring stability in the EU neighborhood, and cooperation with Asian states. “On behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I can confirm that one of the priorities will be the Western Balkans and the enlargement of the European Union. Of course, the issue of ensuring stability in the wider neighborhood of the European Union with regard to migration and conflict, especially in Africa, will be another priority. Furthermore, we talk about cooperation with Asian states,” Petříček said in an interview with the Czech News Agency. According to him, the coronavirus pandemic has also revealed the importance of strengthening the European Union’s ability to respond to crises. “I think that strengthening resilience will be one of the cross-cutting themes that we will promote not only in the European Union’s foreign policy but in general,” he said. The budget of the...
For a majority of the population, the reasoning behind some implemented measures is missing or incomprehensible. According to a survey conducted by the Public Opinion Research Centre (CVVM), six out of ten Czechs consider the state’s response to the spread of COVID-19 to be adequate. For the majority of the population, however, the reasoning behind some implemented measures is missing or incomprehensible. In December, 44 percent of respondents described the measures as understandable, while 55 percent rated them the opposite. Compared to the results of a September survey, the number of people who consider the measures insufficient decreased by ten percentage points. On the contrary, there was a seven-percentage-point increase in the group of people who consider the measures to be excessive. At the end of last year, 57 percent of respondents also considered the government measures to be effective, while 37 percent of them were of the opposite opinion. In May and early June, more than four-fifths of Czech citizens were convinced that the measures were effective. In the time of the coronavirus epidemic, the Czechs evaluated the activities of medics, firemen, and the army most positively, with more than 80 percent of the public appreciating their work. On...
Volkswagen’s Škoda Auto will not sponsor this year’s ice hockey world championship if the event is held in Belarus, due to the host country’s recent state violence against peaceful protesters, the carmaker said on January 16. Belarus, which is due to host the tournament in May-June, is facing calls for it to be stripped of the event because of President Alexander Lukashenko’s crackdown on protesters opposing his re-election. “We’ve been a proud partner for 28 years. But we also respect & promote all human rights,” the carmaker said in a tweet. We’ve been a proud partner to the @IIHFHockey World Championship for 28 years. But we also respect & promote all human rights. Therefore, #SKODA will withdraw from sponsoring the 2021 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship if #Belarus is confirmed to be co-hosting the event. pic.twitter.com/fC3ZMbY2cG — ŠKODA AUTO NEWS (@skodaautonews) January 16, 2021 “We’ve been a proud partner for 28 years. But we also respect & promote all human rights,” the carmaker said on Twitter. “Therefore, SKODA will withdraw from sponsoring the 2021 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship if Belarus is confirmed to be co-hosting the event,” Skoda said. Denying Belarus the right to host the event would...
In the third quarter of 2020, house prices, as measured by the House Price Index, rose by 4.9% in the euro area and by 5.2% in the EU compared with the same quarter of the previous year. In the second quarter of 2020 house prices rose by the same annual rates, 4.9% and 5.2% respectively. These figures come from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. Year-on-year growth in house and apartment prices in the Czech Republic rose by 8.4 percent between July and September last year. Among the European Union countries, the Czech Republic shows the fifth-highest growth. Compared to the second quarter, prices increased by 2.6 percent. “If we calculate the average growth from 2017, apartments in the Czech Republic are growing at the second-fastest rate in the long run, by 9.7 percent per year. Only Hungary outperforms us with an average annual growth of 12.4 percent,” said analyst Petr Bartoň. “We will probably not see a significant cooling in the real estate market this year. Due to limited construction, it is unlikely that developers will overwhelm the market with new offers,” added ČSOB analyst Petr Dufek. Among the Member States for which data are available, the...
Global deliveries by Volkswagen’s Škoda Auto fell 19.1% to 1.005 million vehicles in 2020, hit by the COVID-19 pandemic which caused production outages and closures of dealerships, the Czech carmaker said on Tuesday. The carmaker delivered more than 1 million vehicles for the seventh year running but suffered like many peers as the pandemic hit output and sales, largely in the second quarter. The company saw its biggest drop in China, its largest single market, where deliveries fell 38.7% in 2020, shrinking for a second straight year. Škoda said the second half of the year saw improvement and its board member responsible for sales, Alain Favey, said he viewed the coming months with moderate optimism, despite a surge in COVID-19 infections. While the Czech Republic and other countries in Europe have been hit harder by a growing number of infections, factories have kept their gates open, unlike near the outset of the pandemic. Czech industrial output grew on a year-on-year basis in October and November, according to the latest data available, after crashing in April and May. Škoda is the country’s biggest exporter, shipping the vast majority of its cars abroad. In Europe, Škoda said its market share increased to...
The Covid-19 pandemic measures have forced a big decline in rent prices in Prague. This is due to a few factors, namely because of a lack of tourism, and an absence of university students. In pre-lockdown times, thousands of university students were usually expected at the end of summer to come looking for accommodation, but distance-learning has been obliged by governments globally, eradicating the need for students to show up physically. A significant decrease has been documented since August 2020, substantially peaking around that time when it was clear that universities were not going to be open again, and that learning would stay online. Rent prices have been decreasing since then, affecting all parts of Prague. Notably, Prague 1 encountered a huge decrease of 11.5% during August of last year, followed by Prague 7, with a documented decrease of 5.8%. The estimated rent price for 1+KK dropped by 12%, at about 11,000 CZK since December 2020. On the other hand, 3+KK apartment rents plunged to a decrease of 14.6%. What this has come to signify for the market, is a decline in short-term rentals. Mainly correlated with the fact that there aren’t enough tourists to rent out flats for a...
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