Archive: Business | Business

Finnish Transtech Oy, a subsidiary of the Czech company Škoda Transportation, will deliver ten Artic trams to the city of Helsinki. The price of the contract amounts to 750 million crowns.

There are currently 48 trams of the same type operating in the Finnish capital. As of 2021, they will also operate on a newly built track in the city of Tampere. The Plzeň-based transport company Škoda Transportation acquired a controlling stake in Finland’s sole manufacturer of rail vehicles abd trams in August 2015.

The trade surplus widened in April compared with a year earlier. It climbed to 15.8 billion crowns, 3.8 billion more than in the same period in 2017.

The main factors fuelling the surplus were car, machinery, and electrical equipment exports. The main dents in the surplus came from increased imports of chemicals and coke.

The Czech trade surplus so far this year stands at 73.6 billion crowns. The statistical office said the overall trend is for decreasing exports and stagnating imports.

The Czech retail sales boom speeded up in April with a 5.6 percent increase on spending levels compared with a year earlier. March sales rose at the rate of 3.9 percent.

Sales rose fastest in non-food items, food sales were almost unchanged. And the boom in sales via the Internet and via mail order companies continued with a 20.3 percent annual increase according to the Czech Statistical Office.

Czech steelmakers are likely to be hit by US duties as a trade war looms with the United States. While direct Czech exports to the United States are relatively small, the main concern is the knock-on effect as tradition markets are flooded with steel originally destined for the US.

The company R2G has made what appears to be a record acquisition for a Czech investor in the United States, iHned.cz reported. R2G has bought First Quality Nonwovens from the group First Quality Enterprises, which has factories in the US and China and supplies fabrics for hygiene products, at a cost of an estimated USD 500,000, the equivalent of almost CZK 11 billion.

R2G plans to merge First Quality Nonwovens with the Czech-based Pegas Nonwovens, which it acquired recently, to create PFNonwovens, iHned.cz reported.

Major Czech auto industry players are turning their attention to India, the daily Hospodářské noviny reported on Tuesday. The car industry in India has been growing at a record pace and the government there wants to triple car production by the year 2026.

Government ministers have stopped taking part in international trips with Czech entrepreneurs and this could cost the latter in terms of deals, a number of business chambers said in a statement to the Czech News Agency on Tuesday.

A spokesperson for the Chamber of Commerce, Miroslav Diro, said Czech firms could lose out to rivals from other states when it comes to import and export opportunities. Mr. Diro said the minister of finance and minister of industry and trade often helped open doors for his group’s members internationally.

The acting prime minister, Andrej Babiš, has in the past said that the state is not a travel agency. He said the country should be represented by diplomats, who are paid for that service, abroad.

Number of Czech internet stores accepting Bitcoins for payments has increased tenfold over the past four years to around 1,000, the Czech News agency reported on Sunday.

Among the shops that started accepting the digital currency is Czech largest online retailer Alza, which has also installed a Bitcoin ATM in two of its showrooms. Last year, the Comfort Finance Group CFG established the first Czech cryptocurrency fund.

Prague’s stock exchange has had something of a roller coaster existence after it reopened in 1993, a few years after the fall of communism in 1989. It's now looking to boost its fortunes by raising cash for small companies.

The Chinese group at the centre of Czech moves to boost relations and economic ties with Beijing has suffered a high profile and embarrassing setback. A Czech investment group has moved to take control of the Shanghai-based group’s European activities based in Prague citing massive unpaid debts.