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A new government scheme providing relatively cheap loans to young people to buy or renovate homes has just been launched. However, with prices continuing to soar many may still find it difficult to find suitable properties.

Boeing’s gigantic 787 Dreamliner is set to launch regular service from Václav Havel Airport Prague. The Dreamliner, which has a capacity for 254 passengers, will be deployed by Qatari Airways on the route from Prague to Doha as of October 28, Prague’s Václav Havel Airport informed in a press release on Monday.

Official estimates released on Monday suggest that drought will hit the Czech Republic’s 2018 grain harvest quite hard, causing a 7.5 percent decline in yield compared to last year. And that could well have a knock-on effect on the price of bread.

Burčák is a fermented young wine that annually marks the start of the grape-harvesting season. And, like many other products dependent on the weather, it arrived a fortnight early this year.

The second-largest online grocer in the Czech Republic, Rohlik.cz has reported its first annual profit since its establishment in 2014, the Czech News Agency reported on Thursday. The retailer expects to see a turnover of 2.5 billion crowns in 2018 and plans to double that figure next year.

The Supreme Audit Office has criticized the Czech system of granting subsidies in the sphere of research, development and innovation as ineffective. The office claims that despite a growing amount of funds channelled into these areas, there are few registered patents and there is a clear lack of cooperation between the private and public sectors.

Few Czechs regularly work from home, according to the latest Eurostat figures. Indeed, less than 4.0 percent of Czech employees conduct work business from their place of residence. That is beneath the EU average and far lower than in neighbouring Austria, where the figure stands at 9.5 percent.

The weakening crown coupled with robust wage growth could lead Czech central bankers to consider the first back-to-back increase in interest rates in over a decade at their next policy-setting meeting, the Bloomberg news agency reported on Tuesday, citing interviews with two board members keen to cool the overheating economy.

A parliamentary commission has begun investigating the controversial sell-off and subsequent collapse of coal company OKD. However, the investigation has got off to a poor start, with no-shows from several of the witnesses that MPs have called for questioning.

Czech petrochemical giant Unipetrol announced its financial results for the second quarter of 2018 on Friday. The company recorded a net profit of 2.9 billion crowns, down 687 million crowns in annual terms. The group’s total revenues reached 31.1 billion crowns, a year-on-year decrease of 44 million crowns.