Friday News Briefing

NEWS

EUROZONE Prime Minister Petr Nečas and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said a new eurozone fiscal agreement should only apply to countries once they join the eurozone, speaking at a joint press conference in Budapest Dec. 15. Czech negotiators will participate in the negotiation of the new agreement.  "It is meaningless to speculate about any details since the specific parameters of the treaty will still be negotiated," Nečas said. Nečas and Orbán also said they would seek to boost trade between their respective countries, which is now at just 80 percent of pre-crisis levels.

CENSUS Moravians are the second-largest ethnic group in the country (behind Czechs), according to preliminary results of the census released by the Czech Statistical Office Dec. 15. Just 13,000 people identified themselves as Roma on the census, although it is believed that some 250,000 Roma live in the country. Roma are traditionally underreported in the census. Nearly 150,000 people claimed Slovak ethnic origin, nearly 40,000 claimed Polish, and German was claimed by 18,772 persons.

MOCKING Foreign Affairs Minister Karel Schwarzenberg (TOP 09) wore a badge that mocked Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Parliament Dec. 15, the daily Mladá fronta dnes reported. The badge reportedly read: "Putin, heel! Go to bed!" Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister Lubomír Zoaralek (Social Democrats) called the display "unfortunate." Schwarzenberg said he received the badge from a girl and that it was a joke. He later claimed he didn't know what was written on it.

BUSINESS

CAPITAL Domestic companies now control 59 percent of the total registered capital in Czech businesses, up 1 percent from last year, while foreign capital in Czech companies has decreased nearly 2 percent to 902 billion Kč, according to an analysis published by research agency ČEKIA Dec. 15. Companies based in the Netherlands, a country with a reputation as a tax haven, especially for Czech enterprises, control almost one quarter of the money in companies with foreign capital. The Netherlands is followed by Germany with 12 percent, Austria with 10 percent and France and Cyprus with 6 percent each. Indian companies registered the biggest annual growth in the volume of controlled capital in Czech companies, up by 247 percent.

AUTOMOTIVE The country's largest car manufacturer Škoda sold a record 816,000 cars in the January to November period, an annual rise of 16 percent and more cars than were sold in the entire year of 2010. Russian sales skyrocketed by 131.5 percent to 8,000 units, marking the best monthly results the company has seen for a country. Double-digit growth was also posted in India and China. Sales in Western Europe dropped but at a slower rate than the overall market fall.

INVESTMENT The volume of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Slovakia this year is the highest in the past three years, daily Hospodářské noviny reported Dec. 15, citing data from the Slovak government agency SARIO. The agency helped attract 26 companies to the country that will invest 17.59 million euros and create 4,300 jobs. Sweden's Dometic, which produces automotive parts, will create 500 new jobs in Filakovo, central Slovakia, while Honeywell of the United States will employ 450 factory staff in eastern Slovakia producing turbochargers.

WEATHER

Prague, Czech Republic; Rain; High: 8 C, Low: 1 C  

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