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Foreign filmmakers and TV crews spent nearly 5 billion crowns last year in the Czech Republic, a jump of nearly two billion crowns compared to 2017. With the state having paid out some 800 million crowns through an incentives scheme, the return on investment is solid. But competition is fierce – and heating up.

Prime Minister Andrej Babiš’s tweet that he was lobbying for the opening of an Apple Store in Prague received much attention from Czech media. However, server iDNES.cz reports that the Czech PM also discussed the possibility of introducing American telecoms giant AT&T as the fourth major mobile phone operator in the country.

One of the important points on Foreign Minister Tomáš Petříček’s agenda during his two-day visit to Ukraine has been the strengthening of economic relations. While bilateral trade sank significantly in the immediate period following the 2014 revolution, it has been growing steadily since 2016 and now lies at nearly EUR 2 billion per year.

Fresh evidence has emerged in a sports subsidy scandal over which former Czech Football Association chairman Miroslav Pelta is facing criminal prosecution, alongside a widening array of alleged accomplices, including association, club, and former education ministry officials.

Prime Minister Andrej Babiš is in Davos this week talking to international leaders. On Thursday he met with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Apple CEO Tim Cook. According the Mr. Babiš there is much potential for Czech companies in what is currently the country’s second largest trading partner in South America.

Successful women from different walks of life gathered this week for the fourteenth edition of the TOP Czech Women awards traditionally organized by the Economia Publishing House.

Czech airspace has been growing increasingly crowded in recent years. In 2018, air traffic controllers reported the highest ever number of flights over the Czech Republic, the Czech News Agency reported on Wednesday.

The Finance Ministry has announced that orders for the special “Republic” bonds, issued to mark the centenary of Czechoslovakia late last year have exceeded 3 billion Czech crowns. A second issue of the bonds has already come on the market.

The Czech economy is by some measures the most competitive in Central and Eastern Europe. But productivity has not kept pace with the rapid wage growth of recent years. And without greater state support for applied research and to encourage innovation, the Ministry of Industry warns, long-term competitiveness – already now “frozen” – could plummet.

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš wants to promote his country’s relations with India to a strategic partnership. He said so in an opening speech at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit in Gandhinagar, where he also met with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi.