The Chamber of Deputies yesterday passed a constitutional bill on referendum. The deputies increased the minimum number of signatures necessary for a referendum to be declared from 300,000 to 500,000.
European Central Bank President Wim Duisenberg, who presided over a 23 percent drop in the value of Europe's single currency and a stagnating economy, said he would step down in July 2003, three years before the end of his term. According to previous unofficial agreement, the Duisenberg's successor should be Jean-Claude Trichet, French national bank governor. However, hi is now investigated because of a collapse of Crédit Lyonnais.
ECB as well as the Bank of England decided to let interest rates unchanged. The main ECB's interest rate is now 3.25%. The rate of BoE is 4.0%.
Eurozone's GDP increased by 0.1%, quarter-to-quarter, in the third quarter 2001, said Eurostat in its revised statistical report yesterday. As for year-on-year comparison, GDP grew by 1.4%.
The Czech Statistical Office releases inflation figures today at 9:00. Our forecast for CPI is 1.4%, month-on-month, and 3.6%, year-on-year. Labor Ministry is going to reveal unemployment figures for January today. We expect the rate of unemployment to increase to 9.3% from 8.9% in December.
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