Archive: Business | Business

Czech billionaire developer Radovan Vítek’s CPI Property Group completed the sale this week of 550 million euros (CZK 14 billion crowns) in 4.9% bonds, a day before a CZK 70 billion lawsuit was filed against the him, the company and others in a US District court in New York over alleged fraud.

Prague this week for the first time hosted the European leg of the Startup World Cup & Summit, an annual event drawing hundreds of hopefuls and thousands of prospective investors. A Czech startup took the regional prize but lost out to a Swedish one for the continental prize – and $500,000 in seed money.

February saw Czech industrial production experience a year-on-year growth of 1.5 percent, according to the latest Czech Statistics Office report released on Monday. The growth was mainly the result of energy production. The automobile manufacturing sector experienced a decline, but improved compared to previous months.

Czech companies doing business in high-risk markets will now be able to apply for up to CZK 25 million in funding thanks to a new foreign ministry scheme unveiled on Tuesday. It says the plan is the first of its kind in Central Europe and follows the EU’s shift in focus from foreign aid to investment.

The Czech Republic is no longer the most attractive country in the Central and Eastern European region for German investors.

According to a survey by the German-Czech Chamber of Industry and Commerce released on Wednesday, Estonia now tops the list of 15 countries.

The Czech Republic, now ranked second, had held that spot for three consecutive years. Poland placed third.

The main contributors to the decline in attractiveness are a lack of qualified people and weak vocational education, investors surveyed said. Growing labour costs, lack of transparency in public procurement and corruption are also worrying.

The Prague-based property technology company Spaceti took top honours this year at MIPIM, the world’s biggest real estate industry fair, held in the glitzy French resort town of Cannes. Co-founder Aakas Ravi spoke to Radio Prague about the start-up’s evolution from focusing on safety to its pioneering work making “smart buildings” even smarter.

Budějovický Budvar last year recorded the highest exports in its history. The brewing company – whose products are sold under the Czechvar brand name in some states – exported 1.07 million hectolitres of beer in 2018, a rise of 8.5 percent on the previous year, according to figures it has just released.

Despite the Czech government having no target date for adoption of the common European currency, an increasing number of Czech companies are using the Euro among themselves. According to data released by the Czech Chamber of Commerce, more than a fifth of all payments to domestic suppliers are now carried out in euros.

Three Czech companies have made it into the annual list of Europe’s fastest-growing companies, put together by the Financial Times. It lists 1,000 companies that achieved the highest compound annual growth rate in revenue between 2014 and 2017 of at least of 37.7 per cent, compared with 34.6 per cent last year.

Foreign and internal economic factors will cause the Czech exports sector to lose its breath in the second quarter of 2019, at least according to an export prediction method produced by the Exporter Association and Raiffeisen Bank. Authors of the study say that the under saturated labour market in the Czech Republic has forced many companies to delay their deliveries and thus hindered potential orders from abroad.