News

The Czech state-owned rail operator, Ceske Drahy, reported a preliminary profit of 30 million CZK (1.5 million USD) for the first half of this year. A spokesperson for the company predicted that Ceske Drahy would make an overall profit this year, for the first time since it became a joint stock company in 2003. This year, passenger numbers have grown by about two percent, while revenue generated by cargo is up seven percent. Ceske Drahy is the fifth biggest cargo transporter in Europe, moving 90 million tonnes of goods each year.

The Czech Interior Ministry has asked for more money to repatriate ethnic Czechs currently living in Kazakhstan. The cost of relocation and housing was originally priced at around 50 million CZK (2.5 million USD) per year. However, with more ethnic Czechs emerging, the ministry has asked for a further 5 million CZK.

The ministry wants to provide a passage for the 170 known ethnic Czechs out of Kazakhstan, as it says that the economic situation, as well as the security of the Czech community in the Central-Asian state, has deteriorated in recent years.

The Czech Finance Ministry has filed a lawsuit with a Paris-based arbitration court against the Czech bank CSOB. The ministry said in a statement on Monday it is seeking nearly 27 billion crowns (1.3 billion USD) in compensation in connection with the clearance of IPB bank which CSOB took over in June 2000. The Czech IPB bank was one of the country's largest financial institutions in the 1990s. In June 2000 the bank - part owned by Japan's Nomura - was placed under forced administration and later sold off to CSOB bank.

New statistics released by the Czech Social Security Administration show that women's old-age pensions are on average about one-fifth lower than men's in the Czech Republic. Men's average monthly old-age pension was 9,157 crowns (450 US dollars) at the end of last year, while women's average pension was 1,726 crowns lower. In 2001, the difference was 17.4 percent, last year it came close to 19 percent. Czech women earn an average one quarter less than men as most of them work in professions with lower wages. Equal rights experts say that women in the same positions and doing the same work as men often receive less money than men, a fact later reflected in their pensions.