According to HN daily, the demand for residential projects remains to be robust in the Czech Republic even after January increase in VAT. Many of the developers, e.g. (1 723 CZK, 0,00%) expected 1H08 to be rather weaker, with the demand to revive in 2H08. However this is not the case and several local developers says that they have sold in January more apartments than year before. According to Institute of regional information (IRI), the price of standard apartment increased over last 4 months by 3.4% in Prague, 5.7% in Ostrava.
Our view: We see these fundamentals as positive for the residential developers operating in the Czech Republic, especially , to some extent (882 CZK, 0,00%) and (37 PLN, 0,00%) but we don’t expect any trading impact in the short term based on this news.