The Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade is after yet another bright idea: it has established a committee that would gaze into a crystal ball and then decide when it would become profitable to use North-Bohemia brown coal for producing gasoline. Currently it is gravely expensive and nobody does it here but, the Ministry officials say, it might change one day. So, meanwhile, we will keep subsidizing the coal-mines.
As we already noted, the finance minister is frustrated by the Cabinet privatization paralysis and apparently mulls a resignation. This morning meeting with the ODS representation over the budget might just add to his headaches. And yes, Nomura (owner of now bankrupt the IPB) wants the Ministry of Finance to pay CZK 30 bil. for the Nomura stake in the IPB. No details how they came to such a figure were given, though.
The euro made it again and slipped to the all-time-low vis-a-vis the dollar, i.e. below the 0.84 USD/EUR. The koruna remained relatively quiet in these stormy times and remains at 35.40 CZK/EUR. It did weaken against the dollar, to 41.80 CZK/USD.
Bonds were mixed, ten-year state bonds almost unchanged. The shorter bonds fell 30 bps.
(Ondrej Schneider)