In this week's Business News: Czechs reduce milk supplies in protest at EU quotas, Czech Airlines post large losses, search engine Seznam is found to be the country's most famous brand, high parking prices at Prague's Ruzyně airport lead to unusual solution and predictions that Euro 2008 will help to boost beer sales.
Milk supplies to be reduced in protest
Photo: CTK
Czech farmers are joining their German counterparts to take part in a milk protest. Producers of milk in the Czech Republic are to deliberately reduce supplies by ten percent in an effort to raise the buying price. Similar protests are taking place in Germany, and the Czech move is viewed as a sign of solidarity with that effort. Milk has been in the headlines this week as German producers temporarily blocked the Czech Republic access to its milk market, leading thousands of litres of milk to be destroyed or fed to cattle instead. The reasons for the problems are said to lie with excessive EU quotas which have decreased the buying price of milk and also led to over-production.
Czech Airlines post huge losses
The Czech national carrier has posted losses for the first four months of 2008 of 444 million crowns. Despite the losses, the news is being greeted with optimism by the troubled carrier, as its planned losses for that period were actually higher: 453 million. Despite the bad news, the airline is still hoping to post a profit by the end of the year and by 2013 plans to make profits in the region of one billion crowns, partly by increasing capacity and lowering costs.
Seznam is best Czech brand
Photo: archive of Radio Prague
A huge survey by the marketing company Mather has found that the internet search engine Seznam is the country’s most prolific brand. Seznam, whose market worth is estimated at around two billion crowns, is one of the few search engines that leads Google in its country of operations – recently, speculation has been mounting that the company might be sold off. The silver medal in the Mather poll went to PPF, a financial and investment group said to be worth 1.95 billion crowns, with the bronze going to Home Credit, a loan company, worth around 750 million crowns.
High parking prices lead to unusual solution
Ruzyne Airport
High prices for parking at Prague Ruzyně airport have lead locals in the area to offer a unique solution – cheap parking on their property. According to reports, many Czechs living near Ruzyně are building and running their own private car parks enabling drivers to save a few hundred crowns on parking costs. In fact, some are turning their entrepreneurship into big bucks – one car park builder now can host up to 300 cars. Around three million cars park at Ruzyně’s facilities each year, although the airport has conceded that it is beginning to feel the pinch from the competition.
Euro 2008 expected to raise beer consumption
The summer Euro 2008 football competition is expected to raise beer sales in the Czech Republic according to Plzeňský Prazdroj, maker of the famous Pilsen beer. They estimate that beer companies could sell considerably more than the 20 million hectoliter annual average thanks to the competition. And of course, the further the team gets, the greater the increased consumption will be. The Czech Republic’s first match is against Switzerland on Saturday.
