A brand new off-budget Housing Fund began its life yesterday. It remains firmly in the Ministry's grip and is staffed by the bureaucrats. It wants to spend almost CZK 20 bil. next year that would be financed from the privatization revenues. No clues what will happen when these dry out. The usually chirpy industry minister was defeated yesterday in the Senate when senators rejected his energy law, already passed by the lower house. As the power sharing is given, the lower house may easily over-vote the Senate, so the minister remains calm.
It is almost unbelievable, but the euro made it again and reached a brand new record low vis-a-vis the dollar, this time below the 0.83 USD/EUR level. The Czech koruna remained stuck somewhere in between, as it gained back against the euro to 34.80 CZK/EUR, but it slipped to 42.10 CZK/USD. While the CNB bank board convenes today, no actual action on the forex market is expected.
Bond prices were rather stable, longer issues losing negligibly and shorter gaining 5-10 bps.
(Ondrej Schneider)