Politics: Interview with Jaroslav Zavadil, Chairman of Committee on Social Policy

31 March 2014

The Council on Czech Competitiveness brings you intrview with Jaroslav Zavadil, Member of Parliament for Czech Social Democratic Party and Chairman of Committee on Social Policy.

For the interview in Czech click HERE.

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Competitiveness: EC proposes changes in corporate governance

11 April 2014

On 9 April, the European Commission has come up with a package of measures that should help ensure the long-term financing of the EU economy (this issue has been informed about here). The most important part of the package is a revision of the Shareholders Rights Directive. According to Michel Barnier, Commissioner fot the Internal Market, present involvement of shareholders in corporate governance is insufficient and leads to short-term thinking that damages the EU economy in terms of its sustainability. According to the proposal, all the 10 000 or so listed European companies would be obliged to have their management pay policy bindingly approved by the shareholders, the so-called “say on pay” principle. In such a vote by the shareholders, the management will also have to explain, how the remuneration policy would help long-term prosperity of the company and how the salaries were calculated in comparison with an average employee salary. Furthermore, institutional investors, asset managements and proxy agents will be required to be much more transparent in their dealings. In this manner, long-term interests of the company should be taken into account more by the shareholders.

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Economic policy: EU to impose heavy duties on Chinese solar glass

10 April 2014

European Union backed imposition of heavy duties on Chinese imports of glass used in solar panels due to illegal subsidies and low prices of the glass. Duties ranging from 17.1 per cent to 42.1 per cent were backed by the majority of EU countries, despite the fact that Chinese glass accounts for small part of EU solar glass market and therefore doesn´t pose big threat to other producers. Definite will be known and imposed by the end of May. New duties are a result of investigation, which followed a complaint from EU ProSun Glass, a group of producers led by EU sector leader GMB of Germany. This group represents more than half of EU solar glass market, which is valued at $276.5 million, and wishes to bring price of Chinese glass up to 9 euro per square meter. Since November, the imports from China are already subject to provisional duties at these levels. Newly imposed duties will last for five years.

For more, click here.

Competitiveness: IMF believes that Czech economy will grow faster

08 April 2014

According to the IMF World Economic Outlook for April 2014 the Czech Republic should grow faster than in the previous year. Estimated growth of Czech economy by 1.9 % for 2014 is in comparison to previous growth of 0.9 % last year 1 % higher. The percentage is also higher in comparison to IMF economic forecast for the Czech Republic at the beginning of this year which stated potential growth of only 1.5 % higher which illustrates that Czech economy is doing better than IMF anticipated. The IMF outlook for the Czech Republic with the growth of 1.9 % ranks in general among higher estimates. For example Czech National Bank believes that Czech GDP will grow by 2.2 % which is higher than IMF estimate but on the other hand Ministry of Finance foresees the growth of only 1.4 %, according to the European Commission the Czech GDP should grow by 1.8 % and OECD by only 1.1 %. For the year 2015 the outlook looks brighter and IMF with its estimate of 2 % is rather on the safe side here in comparison to Czech National Bank with 2.8 %, Ministry of Finance with 2 %, European Commission with 2.2 % and OECD with expected growth of 2.3 %.

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