Archive: Business | Business Business
Czech shopping mall boom looks set to continue
The Czech Republic has seen a massive increase in the number of shopping
malls in recent years, with around 60 of them dotted around the country.
Rare a decade ago, large shopping centres are now part of the everyday
lives of millions of Czechs. And while the number of malls keeps on
growing, some major retailers are also making inroads into the corner shop
market.
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Business News
This week in Business News: The government is to support Škoda producing
regions, Czech Airlines struggles with high fuel costs, Czechs are starting
to shop for cheaper groceries in Germany, household debt growing faster
than savings and gas prices are set to skyrocket next year.
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Business News
In Business News this week: March’s trade surplus is half that of the
same month a year previously; Google ups the ante in the battle for search
supremacy with the launch of a map system for Czech users; Czech coal
magnate Zdeněk Bakala celebrates an extremely successful IPO; after a
sharp increase in property values, the price of old flats in Prague begins
to fall; Czech households pay the lowest prices for electricity in the
central Europe region, says a new study: and sales of high definition
televisions are set to pass out sales of classic sets this year. More
Iconic red and cream Prague trams get new lease of life in Pyongyang
The Prague Transport Authority announced on Tuesday that the first of
twenty reconditioned trams would be shipped to North Korea this week. The
North Korean government are paying about 13 million crowns – that’s
just over 800,000 U.S. dollars - for the second-hand trams, one of
Prague’s most instantly recognisable symbols. But as Rob Cameron reports,
they’re not the first Czech trams to be sent abroad, and not even the
first to be sent to North Korea.
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Business News
In Business News this week: High inflation but low unemployment, a fake
blog is exposed as a marketing ploy, rumours abound that Microsoft will buy
Seznam, a look at the Czech snail business and the country's most absurd
bank fee.
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SAPA: Prague’s ‘little Vietnam’
SAPA is about as close as you are going to get to feeling like you are in
Hanoi, or Ho Chi Minh City, while you are still, in fact, in Prague. At
certain moments, and from certain angles, you can almost forget the prefab
housing which surrounds the Vietnamese market, and believe that you are on
a completely different continent. SAPA is the heart of the Czech
Republic’s rapidly-expanding Vietnamese community, and not for nothing
has it been dubbed ‘little Vietnam’. But unlike the Chinatowns that
form an integral part of many a city, SAPA is miles away from Prague’s
city centre. I ventured out to SAPA, where I was met by my guide for the
day: More
Business News
In Business News this week: the OECD says the Czech Republic could catch up
with western European levels of prosperity in ten years’ time; shares in
a Czech coal mining firm are to debut on the London Stock Exchange; Czech
firms spent nearly 50 billion crowns on advertising last year, and
cigarette prices are set to go up in the Czech Republic.
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The lion crown
Concerns have been increasing about the relative strength of the Czech
crown. On Monday, the currency briefly set a new record, trading at 23
crowns to the Euro. But a strong crown is proving to be a double edged
sword, with many businesses in the country wanting the government and Czech
National Bank to prevent the currency from getting any stronger:
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Business News
In Business News: the Finance Ministry and the Czech National Bank agree on
measures to fight the fast appreciation of the crown; the central bank’s
governor says it is keeping interest rates low in order to avoid further
firming of the Czech currency; the foreign trade surplus increased by ten
percent; a new body is set up to prepare for euro adoption; and the biggest
urban building project since 1989 gets underway in Prague.
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Business News
In Business News this week: The prime minister suggests that next year’s
public finance deficit could be lower than expected; the Czech Finance
Ministry says it has won its court case against ArcelorMittal; Dutch brewer
Heineken is set to take over north Bohemian beer producer Drinks Union;
Prague’s Ruzyně ayirport is bracing itself for a record number of
passengers in 2008, and one in five Czech managers take ‘smart’ drugs
to help them up their energy levels.
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