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With the problem of persistent summer droughts gaining in intensity, the Environment Ministry has announced it will pour more money into a water tank rebates program intended to boost a policy of rainwater harvesting and utilization.

The Czech economy is booming – and so is the informal, grey economy, with an estimated quarter of a million people working illegally, as employers turn to so-called “underground agencies” to procure employees.

Czechs start work bright and early, more so than most other nations in Europe. According to a Microsoft survey just out, the majority of Czechs are at their workplace by 8 am, and most manual workers start by 6 am at the latest.

The 2019 draft budget is to focus on investment, increase of public sector salaries and the raising of pensioners’ living standards, Finance Minister Alena Schillerová said after it won government approval on Wednesday. The budget proposal counts on a CZK 40 billion deficit; ten billion less than originally planned by the Ministry of Finance.

Czech economic research institute CETA (Centrum ekonomických a tržních analýz) published a study focused on the residential housing market in Prague on Friday, which claims that bureaucratic hurdles, coupled with high demand, are primarily responsible for the current low availability of housing in the capital. It also claims that Airbnb flats, which have been the centre of focus for many councillors, are not to blame.

Opravárna is a new Czech app, which matches handymen to repair requests sent from across the country. The app has been quick to catch on and currently has nearly a thousand handymen registered. Yet Opravárna is not just a savvy business idea, but one of the ways in which the Czech Republic can contribute to the EU’s plan for achieving a more circular economy.

The Czech National Bank (ČNB) said on Friday it had maintained its extra countercyclical capital buffer for banks at 1.50 percent following a series of increases aimed at reining in rapid credit growth.

Czech online grocer Rohlik.cz has made a pledge to get rid of all single-use plastics by the end of the year. The shop has also introduced a filter option which allows its customers to buy only plastic-free products, spokesman Pavel Kučera said on Wednesday.

The Czech National Bank could raise its interest rates twice by the end of the year, said the bank’s governor, Jiří Rusnok, in an interview with Reuters. The bank’s council raised the basic interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 1.25 percent in August. Mr. Rusnok stated that a further increase could come as early as this month.

Czechs will soon have to fork out more for the nation’s most popular alcoholic beverage. Large breweries have announces a rise in beer prices as of October and others are waiting for the price of hops and malt to stabilize before making a similar announcement.