Business News

In this week’s Business News: Brexit is Czech business opportunity says top government official; foreign workers on the rise; ČEZ starts fresh arbitration proceedings in Balkans; inflation remains at low levels; and single payment site costs billions without result.

Czech Republic can tempt British-based companies

Photo: Public Domain

The United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union represents an opportunity for the Czech Republic to attract EU agencies and the headquarters of multi-national companies currently located in the UK, says the state secretary for European affairs, Tomáš Prouza. He made the comment after the first meeting on Thursday of a working group created to draw up a strategy on Brexit and the future of the EU. Mr. Prouza called on the Ministry of Industry and Trade and CzechInvest to draw up a list of firms that may be interested in moving to the Czech Republic.

Foreign workers triple over 15 years

The number of foreign workers in the Czech Republic has more than tripled in the last 15 years, according to a new government report. Three-quarters of non-native employees are from the European Union and therefore do not require work permits; the highest number are from Slovakia. At the end of last year there were 323,000 such workers in the country; that figure was nearly 40,000 higher than in 2008, when the financial crisis began.

ČEZ launches arbitration over Bulgarian distribution and sales units

Photo: Filip Jandourek

The Czech energy giant ČEZ has launched an international investment arbitration case against Bulgaria, company spokesperson Barbora Půlpánová said on Tuesday. ČEZ is seeking hundreds of millions of euros from the Bulgarian state. Ms. Půlpánová said that ČEZ had decided on the step following a number of interventions on the part of Bulgarian institutions that had harmed the firm’s business activities in the country. The antitrust authority in Sofia fined ČEZ over EUR 600,000 for abusing its dominant position on the local market.

Inflation still way below central bank target level

Inflation in the Czech Republic remains close to zero, reaching 0.1 percent year-on-year for the second month in a row in June, according to figures released by the Czech Statistics Office on Tuesday. An analyst with Komerční banka told the Czech News Agency that inflation was unlikely to rise significantly in the coming months. Fuel prices increased by four percent compared to May, but overall inflation was pulled down by reductions in the prices of foodstuffs.

Single payment point a black hole with no results says audit office

Photo: Tomáš Adamec

The country’s spending watchdog, the Supreme Audit Office, has castigated moves by three government bodies to try and create a single payment site for all tax, customs, social security and health transactions. In a report published Monday, it said that around 3.5 billion crowns was spent, mostly on non-related activities which did not advance the project at all. The project aimed at simplifying payments and collection was approved by the government in 2008. It was originally supposed to be completed by 2014.