Business News

Business round-up this week: Government agrees on early retirement package for miners; Health minister declares new victory in Diag Human arbitration battle; Finance minister says environment clean up can be done for half previous price; ČEZ reports fall in profits, rise in revenues, Czech Telecommunications Infrastructure new sponsor of Prague Spring festival.

Government agrees on early retirement package for miners

Photo: Daniel Burda

The country’s miners will be allowed to retire five years earlier than the rest of the working population the government agreed at its cabinet meeting on Monday. The plan was put forward by the Ministry for Labour & Social Affairs; if passed into law, it would mean miners would be able to retire at the age of 58. The ministry tabulates that the total cost of the early retirement package will be an estimated 11.6 billion crowns until 2055 – the estimated expiry date for brown coal mines in the country.

Health minister declares new victory in Diag Human arbitration battle

The Czech Republic has won another round in its international arbitration battle with the blood products company Diag Human. A court in Amsterdam backed earlier rulings that the country was not liable to pay more than 8 billion crowns in damages to the blood products company. That some was set in a 2008 ruling of the alleged damages to the company when the Czech Republic withdrew from an earlier agreement. The latest success was announced Thursday by Minister of Health Svatopluk Němeček

Finance minister says environment clean up can be done for half previous price

Photo: Czech Television

Minister of Finance Andrej Babiš said Thursday that his ministry can now arrange for the clear up of long running environmental problems in the country for around half the costs of a tender run by the previous centre-right coalition government. Babiš said the clean-up should cost 25-30 billion crowns compared with the 57 billion offered to underrate the work under the previous government headed by former prime minister Petr Nečas. The clean-up should cover chemicals at the Neratovice site in Central Bohemia, the famous oil and chemical lagoon in Ostrava, and other environmental damage centred around Ústí nad Labem.

CEZ reports fall in profits, rise in revenues, in first three-quarters

The Czech energy giant CEZ has reported a net profit of CZK 16.6 billion for the first nine months of this year, a fall of CZK 3 billion on the same period in 2014. Meanwhile, CEZ’s revenues increased by CZK 3.5 billion to CZK 150.6 billion in the first three quarters, according to a press release issued by the semi-state company on Tuesday. The main causes of the fall in profits were a drop in electricity prices and lower output.

Czech Telecommunications Infrastructure new sponsor of Prague Spring festival

Photo: Filip Jandourek

The company Czech Telecommunications Infrastructure, owned by the richest Czech Petr Kellner, has become the new general sponsor of the Prague Spring international music festival, the head of the festival, Roman Bělor, said on Wednesday. The Česká Spořitelna bank, which had been sponsoring the Prague Spring festival since 2001, stepped down from its sponsorship in April this year. The budget for this year’s 70th edition of the festival amounted to over 80 million crowns.