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The Czech tram manufacturer Inekon has won a tender to sell trams to the US city of Detroit. The deal, worth 30 million crowns (roughly 652 USD), involves shipping three sets of trams to Detroit by the end of the third quarter of 2016, the server E15.cz reported this week, citing the company’s head of foreign sales Milan Haloun. The company is now seeking to secure bank guarantees.

Czech construction companies believe they have emerged from the worst and are looking for confirmation in 2015 that this is the case. Although some companies in the slimmed down sector say they are operating at near capacity, they argue that more could be done to speed up the throughput of public tenders.

In the year 2040 people in the Czech Republic will mainly consume energy produced from natural gas and biomass, while brown coal will be virtually abandoned as a source. At least that is the best possible scenario advanced in a draft long-term state energy plan quoted by the Czech News Agency.

Municipalities around the country are debating the future of water and wastewater management as long-term contracts with foreign firms are due to expire. Within the next five years contracts on water management servicing two million people around the country will expire and city halls need to make a decision on whether to call new tenders or take over the management of this lucrative business themselves.

On the same day the results of a new poll commissioned by the Environment Ministry suggested that only 4 in 10 occasionally buys organic food, there was news that billionaire and real estate magnate Radovan Vítek had bought the company Spojené farmy. According to the Czech daily Mladá fronta Dnes, through the deal the businessman gained control of more than 20 bio farms and 20 thousand hectares of arable or agricultural land in northern Bohemia. The move will make him one of the biggest players on the market.

The all-new Škoda Fabia supermini made its world debut at the Paris Motor Show on Thursday. The latest Fabia model offers a younger, sportier look, a spacier interior, new steering and suspension technology, engines shared with the current Volkswagen Polo and a number of safety and communication elements that have so far been available only in higher-class cars.

Citizens of the former Soviet Union, in particular Russians, are buying up significant numbers of flats in new apartment complexes in Prague, Hospodářské noviny reported on Wednesday.

The Czech Defence Ministry has announced plans to acquire a new anti-aircraft radar system to replace obsolete Soviet-era equipment. The ministry will pursue the acquisition independently, abandoning plans to develop a new air defence radar system together with Poland, Hungary and Slovakia.

The future of Česká pošta (Czech Post) is unclear as key ministers in the centre-left coalition government have differing views as to what to do with the country’s state-owned mail service, Hospodářské noviny reported on Monday.

The lower house of Parliament has approved the abolition of direct payments in health care, introduced by the former centre-right government. Under the new bill, patients will no longer be required to pay 30 crowns (almost 2 US dollars) for every visit to the doctor or a 30 crown fee for medical prescriptions in pharmacies. The only fee that remains in effect is a 90 crown fee for emergency visits.