• Czech government is going to introduce economic reforms package on 3 April. Part of the reforms should be formed by introducing 15% flat tax rate for individuals income tax which would be calculated from gross salary including social and health insurance paid by employer.
• Retail sales revenues increased by 7.7% y/y in January. Overall revenues were helped by car sales where revenues increased by 12.4% y/y. For the fourth year in a row there is a rapid growth clothes and shoes demand. This time revenues of salesmen of mentioned products increased by 22% y/y.
• On Friday, EC announced that floating band of Slovak koruna in the framework of ERM II mechanism was revaluated by 8.5%. New central parity is 35.4424 EUR/SKK.
• Consumers‘ confidence in the USA, measured by Michigan University Index, decreased to 88.8 in March from 91.3 in February due to decline of stock markets, real estate and troubles on mortgages market.
• US industrial production in February increased by 3.4% y/y. Utilisation capacity rate increased to 82% from January’s 81.4%.
• Consumer prices in the USA increased by 0.4% last month due to higher prices of food and energy. Inflation decreased to 2.4% y/y from 2.5% in January.