Reports CZECH REPUBLIC MARKET
“Te considerable losses in sales revenue continued even after the re-opening in May. On the one hand there is general uncertainty in the population regarding the future, and on the other hand, we also lost some customers to online casinos during lockdown. Furthermore there is a cohort of guests that would prefer to stay at home due to fear of possible contact.
“All venues have been completely closed since October 9 and will remain closed until further notice. Tis second lockdown will be in place until November 28 and possibly even longer. Tis is hitting us very hard. For these reasons we recorded considerable economic damage at Merkur Casino Czech Republic for 2020.”
Tere are protests and riots in Czech over the lockdown restrictions whilst other say controls should have been instigated sooner. Te regional and senate elections, which were held on October 2 and 3, were blamed on the late instigation of the second round of restrictions. Te Prime Minister brought in a new health minister to help try and curb the rising figures.
However, Roman Prymula ‘the Colonel’, who announced further lockdown measures was caught violating his own ‘mask wearing’ rules and was then forced to resign and Jan Blatny has recently taken his place.
Czechia is no stranger to political dramas. Te country is headed by President Miloš Zeman of the centre left Czech Social Democrat Party who won a second term in 2018. He had previously served as Prime Minister from 1998 to 2002. He retired, but returned to politics a few years later and in 2012 announced his intention to run in the presidential elections.
His alleged excessive drinking has been subject of many discussions, whilst in 2013 the coalition government led by Petr Necas collapsed and Zeman appointed his long-term friend and ally, Jiri Rusnok, as Prime Minister, which left a bitter taste in many mouths as it essentially undermined the parliamentary democracy and expanded Zeman’s powers. Rusnok’s government, however, was short-lived and he resigned after a vote of no-confidence.
Prime Minister Andrej Babis of the ANO movement is a billionaire former finance minister and has served as PM since the end of 2017. He formed a fragile minority coalition government in 2018 with the Social Democrats, but relies on the support of the communist party. Babis has been subjected to a no- confidence vote, protests and has also undergone fraud investigations.
Meanwhile, the Czech borders were closed down on October 22 restricting all international tourism further damaging the economy.
Te Czech Republic has become one of the major tourism destinations in Europe. A population of 10.6 million welcomed more than 22 million visitors last year, an increase of 3.5
NEWSWIRE / INTERACTIVE / MARKET DATA P43
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