In Business News this week: Czech farmers expect bumper harvest this year; Škoda seeks to boost sales of Fabia on local market; number of Russian tourists drops by 15 percent this year; Less Mess Storage acquires three storage facilities in Czech Republic; and local distilleries expect good season this year.
Farmers expecting bumper harvest of grain and rape seed
Photo: archive of Radio Prague
Czech farmers are expecting a bumper grain harvest this year, the Czech Statistical office reported this week. The harvest of grain this year is the third highest in history, 16.4 percent higher than in the previous year. The rape seed harvest is also expected to be exceptionally good, with a year-on-year increase of 6 percent, to 1.53 million tons. That figure exceeds the average for a past 10 years by nearly 50 percent.
Škoda plans to increase sale of Fabia on local market
Škoda Fabia, photo: Škoda Auto
Škoda intends to sell around one thousand new generation Fabias in the Czech Republic by the end of the year, the head of Škoda sales Luboš Vlček said this week. The Czech car maker wants to increase the sale of Fabias on the local market next year by 30 percent, to 11,000. The third model of the Fabia made its debut at the start of the month at the Paris Motor Show. The basic price will start at just under a quarter of a million Czech crowns. The Fabia is the second most successful model of Škoda after the Octavia. Over 3.5 million Fabias have been sold since 1999, 450,000 of them in the Czech Republic. Production of the second-generation Fabia will stop by the end of this year.
Number of Russian tourists down by 15 percent
Karlovy Vary|Photo: Štěpánka Budková, Radio Prague International
The number of Russian tourists coming to the Czech Republic is likely to drop by 15 to 20 percent year on year in 2014, according to the estimates of state agency CzechTourism. The number of visas issued to Russian tourists by Czech diplomatic missions went down by 19 percent in the third quarter of this year.
The head of CzechTourism, Rostislav Vondruška, said the situation could be improved by simplifying the visa procedure for Russians. According to the agency, the decline has also been influenced by the unfavourable state of the tourism industry in Russia, where 30 tourist agencies have gone bankrupt this year.
Canadian Less Mess Storage acquires Czech storage facilities
Photo: archive of Less Mess Storage
Canadian company Less Mess Storage has acquired five self-storage facilities in the Czech Republic and Poland for 14 million euros (385 million Czech crowns). The transaction has made Less Mess Storage the largest self-storage chain in Central and Eastern Europe. The overall storage area for rent exceeds 16,700 square metres. Three storage buildings are located in Prague and the other two in Warsaw. Less Mess CEO Guy Pinset said the company wants to encourage the trend of self-service storage in the Czech Republic.
Local distilleries expect good season
Photo: Filip Jandourek
Local distilleries are expecting a very good season this year, according to Václav Šitler, chairman of the Czech union of distillers. The production of liquor in the period between July 2014 and end of June 2015 is expected to reach 6.5 million litres, a year-on-year increase of 13 percent. Around 80 percent of this years’ liquor will be made from apples. The amount of slivovice is expected to be low due to a poor harvest of plums.
