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Nearly 80 percent of Czechs consider the dual quality of food in European stores a problem. A study carried out by the KPMG agency suggests that roughly every seventh Czech consumer prefers to buy certain products abroad and nearly one third of them refrain from buying certain products due to the dual quality issue.

Škoda has announced the name of its first electric SUV. The latest Škoda model, which is still in development and should hit the market in 2022, has been named Enyaq. The name starts with the letter E symbolizing electromobility and ends with Q, which the brand uses in the names of all its SUV models. The name is derived from the Irish word enya meaning "source of life." Enyaq is the latest in a series of Škoda SUV models, following up on Kodiaq, Karoq and Kamiq.

The Czech Republic continues to face a serious shortage of skilled workers. While older workers are gradually retiring, there are not enough young graduates from vocational or “trade” schools to replace them, the Czech News Agency reports.

The damage wrought by windstorm Sabine which swept through the Czech Republic at the start of the week with a force of 180 kilometers per hour in places are expected to reach millions of crowns.

The Czech National Bank (ČNB) surprised the market by raising interest rates by 25 basis points at its rate-setting meeting on Thursday, a possible last move in a tightening cycle to rein in domestic prices pressures as economic growth slows, analysts say.

The Czech energy giant CEZ is considering the construction of a factory to produce lithium batteries for electric cars in North Bohemia in the next few years, according to the country’s minister of industry and trade, Karel Havlíček.

The Czech government has approved measures to monitor the environmental impacts of the planned expansion of the Turów brown coal mine located in the close proximity to the Czech border. The expansion was approved by the Polish authorities, despite Czech concerns that it would threaten water sources for villages on the Czech side, as well as severely increasing noise and dust pollution.

The latest Eurostat data show that income poverty rates in the Czech Republic are the second lowest in the European Union, with 3.4 percent of working people in the country threatened by poverty compared to the EU average where the rate lies at around one in ten.

Czech exporters have asked Prime Minister Andrej Babiš to reconsider the government’s proposal to introduce a digital tax. They fear damage to Czech-American business relations and possible retaliatory measures from the US administration.

Air traffic over the Czech Republic, which is one of the densest in Europe, has dropped for the first time in a decade, the Czech news Agency reported on Friday. The number of take-offs, landings and flyovers in 2018 dropped by 0.6 percent on the previous year to 906, 666 airplanes.