Business News
Developers pull Prague stock prices to 13-month low
It was not a good week on the Prague Stock Exchange where share-prices
slumped to their lowest level since November 2006, following further
sell-offs by foreign investors. The index has decreased by 13.5 percent
this year. The past two weeks has wiped out nearly all the profits made
last year. Developers ECM were the biggest losers, with their shares falling
by 10.15 percent. CME, Komerční banka and Orco Property losses ranged
between four and six percent. Analysts assigned the slump to the situation
in the USA that affected markets all over the world.
World sales of Škoda cars up 14.5 percent in 2007
Photo: Kristýna Maková
The Czech car maker Škoda Auto increased its sales around the world by
14.5 percent last year, a company spokesperson said on Tuesday. Total sales
of Škoda cars reached over 630,000 in 2007. The firm’s biggest single
market is Germany, while over half of its vehicles are sold in western
European states. Škoda, which is owned by Germany’s Volkswagen, sold
almost 65,000 cars here in the Czech Republic. Car making has been one of
the main motors of the Czech economy in recent years.
Visa apologizes for duplicated transactions in Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary
Visa has apologized for a glitch in its transaction system in Poland, the
Czech Republic and Hungary that left an unspecified number of customers
with duplicated withdrawals on their accounts. The transaction error
occurred at the start of the week and there are said to have been hundreds
of duplicated operations. A Visa spokesperson categorically denied that the
malfunction was the work of hackers and said clients’ money would be
refunded.
Czech building output up 7 percent year-on-year in November
Czech building output grew by seven percent year-on-year in November after
a 3.5 percent growth in October, the Czech Statistical Office reported this
week. A marked increase was recorded in the fields of civil engineering and
the modernisation and reconstruction of roads. Analysts attributed this
boost to the fact that the municipalities had earmarked funds especially
for this purpose.
Companies unwilling to employ people over 55
Czech companies do not want to employ people over 55 and some even
consider them second-rate employees, the daily Pravo wrote Wednesday in
connection with the government's plan to raise the retirement age to 65. If
the government fails to change this trend, a considerable part of the
country’s senior citizens may end up on the dole collecting unemployment
benefits rather than salaries, the paper writes. People over 50 make up
one-third of the unemployed and only 22 percent of men and women aged 60-64
are economically active, Pravo says.
