EXPANSION - Home appliance manufacturer Miele technika will hire roughly 100 new employees to assemble dishwashers in its plant in Uničov, north Moravia, Mladá fronta Dnes reported May 5. The company will invest 600 million Kč ($27 million) to expand production at the plant, according to company officials.

GAS - Prime Minister Jiří Paroubek sent a letter in early May asking Russian President Vladimir Putin to lower the price of natural gas used for electricity production in the Czech Republic, said Petr Petržílek, an environmental expert and Paroubek adviser. Paroubek and Putin discussed this issue during Putin's visit to Prague earlier this year, but analysts say Russia isn't likely to lower prices.

INVESTMENT - South Korean car producer Hyundai will make no contractual commitment to the minimum size of its investment in a new plant in Nošovice, north Moravia, state inbound investment agency CzechInvest told journalists May 5. CzechInvest said the government's investment incentive program will motivate Hyundai to make a large investment. Hyundai has said it will invest up to 29 billion Kč in the plant.

FACTORY - Insulation manufacturer Knauf Insulation will soon open its first plant in the Czech Republic. Knauf plans to invest nearly 90 million euros (2.5 billion Kč/$113 million) and create 120 jobs in Krupka u Teplic, where unemployment is 20 percent. The factory will produce 60,000 metric tons (66,000 short tons) of insulation a year.

RESTRUCTURING - The KBC Group of Belgium, which owns Czech bank ČSOB, began using a new organizational structure designed to create synergies among the operations of its branches in various countries, among other things, May 1. As a part of the restructuring, Pavel Kavánek, general director of ČSOB, was made leader of the managing team for the Czech Republic.

SPAS - Visitors at the country's spa resorts rose by some 4 percent to more than 390,000 last year, according to Mag Consulting analysts. According to the Institute of Health Information and Statistics, a total of 314,000 people were treated in the Czech Republic in 2005, of whom 194,000 were Czechs and 120,000 foreigners.