Gas prices for Czech households will be lowered by an average 8.2% as of April. The price reduction is enabled by a fall of gas prices on world markets, and by the Czech koruna's appreciation against the US dollar.
The bailout agency Ceska konsolidacni agentura CKA estimates its loss for last year at CZK 39.8bn, while in 2000 KoB's loss equaled CZK 12.7bn. Part of the CKA loss, CZK 3.3bn, will be covered from CKA's reserve fund, CZK 3.8bn will be received from the National Property Fund after reserves for CS assets are created, and CZK 34bn will be covered from this year's state budget.
The M2 measure of money supply in the Czech republic expanded by 12.1% in December from a year earlier, compared with 12.4% in November. Deposits in banks rose by 15%, volume of loans dropped by 17.9%.
Money supply in the eurozone (M3) rose by 7.9%, year-on-year, in January and three-months moving average of M3 growth increased to 8.0%, well above the ECB target of 4.5%.
Gross domestic product of Great Britain was unchanged in the fourth quarter from the third quarter, instead of growing 0.2% as the government first estimated. It grew 1.7% from a year ago.
CNB bank board will hold a meeting concerning monetary policy issues. Patria, as well as other economists in Reuters poll, does not expect further rate cuts. The main point of CNB attention is likely to be an exchange rate.
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