The Prague Post
http://www.aaaradiotaxi.cz/index.php?xSET=lang&xLANG=2
December 4th, 2008
Endowment Fund     Business Listings ONLINE      Reservations      Classifieds    star Gift Subscriptions
Prague accommodation

Home » Archives » Business Archives

Business Headlines

November 28th, 2007 | Current Issue

The air up there
Hot-air balloon manufacturer charts distinctive course

Energy bills to rise 10 percent
Production limits and rising demand are pushing up prices

Prague warns of Christmas debt
Campaign highlights risks of financing festivities with credit

10 Questions
with Ina Gudele
10 Questions

Movers & Shakers
New light to guide Energy 21
Movers & Shakers

BRIEFS


MONDAY, DEC. 3

The British Chamber of Commerce holds its annual general meeting, where candidates will be elected to fill the nine current vacancies on the chamber’s board of directors. The chamber’s future strategy and development will also be discussed. For more info, visit www.britishchamber.cz.
TUESDAY, DEC. 4
The American Chamber of Commerce hosts a business briefing on holding companies and the taxation of expats in the Czech Republic. The briefing will be lead by Patrik Bartuška, managing partner of Tributum Consulting. There will be a Q&A after the presentation. For more info, visit www.amcham.cz.
WEDNESDAY, DEC. 5
The Czech-German Chamber of Commerce hosts its traditional Christmas “Jour Fixe,” starting at 7 p.m. in the chamber’s cupola at Václávské nám. 40. There will be live music and Czech Christmas delicacies. For registration and more info, go to www.dtihk.cz or contact Marie Müller at mueller@dtihk.cz.  
WEDNESDAY, DEC. 5
The Nordic Chamber of Commerce hosts a seminar on the recent tax reforms. The seminar begins at 8:30 a.m. at the Four Seasons Hotel in Prague 1. For more info, visit www.nordicchamber.cz.
THURSDAY, DEC. 6
The American Chamber of Commerce hosts a business briefing entitled “How Applied Mathematics Can Boost Your Business.” The briefing features Ondřej Komenda of inSophy, which specializes in providing mathematical consulting and software solutions to complex business problems. For more info, visit www.amcham.cz.
THURSDAY, DEC. 6
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce hosts its annual Christmas party at Sacre Coeur, a restored neo-Gothic chapel in Prague 5. The party will feature a buffet, dancing, live music and a silent auction. Reservations are required. For more info, visit www.gocanada.cz.
WEDNESDAY, DEC. 12
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce hosts a business breakfast with Aleš Bartůněk, general manager of IBM Czech Republic. The breakfast will take place at the Hilton Prague. For more info, visit www.gocanada.cz.

Send Biz Events to business@praguepost.com

ŠKODA Škoda Auto and its parent company, Volkswagen, will launch the first part of its car plant near Moscow Nov. 28. The plant, costing some 370 million euros ($548 million/9.9 billion Kč), will begin producing Škoda’s Octavia model. When completed in 2009, it will be Škoda’s largest manufacturing facility outside of the Czech Republic, producing 115,000 cars per year.

BRANDS In other Škoda news, a recent survey found that the carmaker’s brand is the Czech Republic’s strongest, Hospodářské noviny (HN) reported Nov. 27. Brewers have a strong presence on the list, with the top-10 rounded out by Pilsner Urquell, Budějovický Budvar, Baťa, Kofola, Becherovka, Mattoni, Česká pojišťovna, Staropramen and Česká spořitelna.
MOVIES Czech Television’s income from advertising will boost the country’s moviemaking fund by at least 425 million Kč over the next three years, HN reported Nov. 26. The public broadcaster will contribute 12.5 million Kč ($691,000) a month to the fund until analog broadcasting ceases, which is expected in the autumn of 2010.
CIGARETTES Austria’s Finance Ministry is looking to limit the number of cigarettes that can be imported from the Czech Republic, Lidové noviny reported Nov. 24. Austrian companies fear a flood of cheaper Czech cigarettes once border protections fall on the Czech Republic’s entrance to the Schengen zone in late December. The imports would be limited on the premise that they do not include health warnings in German.
HEINEKEN Dutch beer giant Heineken is negotiating to buy Drinks Union, brewer of the Zlatopramen and Březňák beers, Mladá fronta Dnes reported Nov. 22. Heineken owns the Starobrno and Krušovice breweries, controlling 9 percent of the domestic beer market. Both companies refused to confirm the discussions.
PORK Speaking to pig farmers protesting outside his offices, Agriculture Minister Petr Gandalovič said the state would not give the farmers the 1 billion Kč in subsidies they were seeking, Právo reported Nov. 21. The responsibility for falling prices — a surplus of pork — is the fault of food producers and does not warrant increased support, he said.
INVESTORS Projects by Hyundai, IBM and Visteon-Autopal have won the 2007 Investor of the Year awards, the state’s inward-invest agency CzechInvest announced Nov. 21. All three projects are located in Moravia: the carmaker Hyundai won for a 30 billion Kč plant it is building in Nošovice; IBM won for its IT outsourcing services in Brno; and Visteon-Autopal, a maker of car parts, won for building a research and development center.
HOUSING The construction market is cooling off, according to recent data released by the Czech Statistical Office. The value of new construction orders in the third quarter of 2007 was down 21.1 percent compared to the same period last year, to 64.6 billion Kč; the number of orders dropped 11.3 percent, to 22,347. Only housing construction showed resilience, up 1.9 percent.

Most visited in Business Listings

Hotel booking
The Prague Post Online contains a selection of articles that have been printed in
The Prague Post, a weekly newspaper published in the Czech Republic.
To subscribe to the print paper, click here.
Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.