Selected economy indicators - January, February 2011

Selected economy indicators

The industrial production opened the year 2011 with the considerable y-o-y growth. After a year of lessening, the y-o-y construction production increased again. The volume of imports continued growing faster than exports; the trade balance was higher than a year ago. In comparison with the last year, January was one working day longer.
In February 2011, the m-o-m consumer prices level increased as against January, the inter-annual gain of prices accelerated. Number of registered unemployed people went down, the registered unemployment rate decreased both inter-monthly and inter-annually.

The y-o-y volume of industrial production in January was higher by 16.9% and got close to the January 2007 level. After working days adjustment the production rose by 14.1%. The largest contribution to the overall increase, 6.1 percentage points, belongs mainly to manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers (growth by more than a third), 2.0 p.p. brought manufacture of fabricated metal products with production growth by 26.4% and 1.7 p.p. manufacture of electrical equipment (growth by almost a third). A downward effect on the growth (-0.9 p.p.) came from the drop of electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply (by 5.9%). The seasonally adjusted volume of industrial production increased against December 2010 by 3.4%.

Revenues from industrial activity at current prices increased y-o-y by 18.1 %. Faster growth of direct export revenues by 20.1 % meant that domestic sales including indirect export revenues of non-industrial enterprises grew by 16.6%. The share of direct export revenues in total revenues of industrial enterprises made up 43,6%, which was by 0,7 p.p. more than a year ago.

The average registered number of employees¹ in enterprises with 50+ employees increased by 4.1% inter-annually. Their average monthly wage reached CZK 24 399, rose by 4.0% nominally and by 2.3% really.

The value of new orders in selected industrial CZ-NACE activities raised by 19.2% y-o-y, non-domestic new orders increased by 25.5% and domestic orders by 9,2%.


CONSTRUCTION

In January, the y-o-y volume of construction output went up by 8.3% really; after working days adjustment by 6.9%. The building construction increased production by 8.7%, the civil engineering by 7.0%. The results were mainly affected by the low comparative base of the previous year, caused also by less favorable weather. The construction output (after seasonal adjustment) decreased by 0.9% m-o-m.

The construction of 2 220 dwellings started, which was by 7.0% more than a year ago, on the contrary the number of dwellings completed reduced by more than one-third to 2 026 dwellings.

The average registered number of employees¹ in construction enterprises with 50+ employees went down by 1.8% y-o-y. Their average monthly wage reached CZK 25 026 and came up by 2.4% nominally and by 0.7% really.


EXTERNAL TRADE

In January, the y-o-y volume of exports increased by 28.4%, the volume of imports grew faster for the eleventh successive month, now by 30.9% - all at current prices. The results were influenced by the low comparative base in January 2010 (the lowest monthly value of exports and imports in 2010). The trade balance showed a surplus of CZK 15.7 bn in January and was higher by CZK 0.4 bn inter-annually. The trade balance with EU member states was active. It reached CZK 58.7 bn, which was about CZK 9.9 bn more than the previous year. The trade balance with non-EU countries was again passive, it amounted to CZK 43.0 bn (in January 2010, the debit was better by CZK 9.5 bn). The trade balance was positively affected mainly by growth of surplus in trade with machinery and transport equipment.

After seasonal adjustment, m-o-m volume of exports went up by 5.2% and m-o-m volume of imports by 6.0%. Trends in exports and in imports raised by 3.4% and 2.7%, respectively.



FEBRUARY 2011

CONSUMER PRICES

In February, total consumer prices level increased by 0.1% compared with January. In total, prices of goods increased by 0.1% and prices of services by 0.2%. The main components with the highest growth rate were: alcoholic beverages, tobacco (by 0.6%), food and non-alcoholic beverages, health and recreation and culture (each by 0.3%). On the contrary, clothing and footwear noted the biggest price decrease (by 0.8%). In terms of the y-o-y comparison, consumer prices rose by 1.8% (the growth rate was by 0.1 p.p. higher than in January). The price level increase was influenced by 0.7 p.p. by higher prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages (by 4.2%) and by 0.6 p.p. by housing, water, energy, fuel (price increase by 2.4%). Alcoholic beverages and tobacco contributed to the total increase by another 0.4 p.p. (price increase by 4.0%).

Inflation rate, expressed as the increase of the average consumer price index for last 12 months related to the average CPI for the previous 12 months, reached 1.7% in February and was by 0.1 p.p. higher than in January. Living costs (imputed rentals not involved) in households of pensioners went up by 2.5%.

In February, the y-o-y increase of the harmonized index of consumer prices in the Czech Republic stayed at 1.9% as in January (the Eurostat flash estimate for Euroarea was 2.4%).


UNEMPLOYMENT

The registered unemployment rate (according to the Ministry of Social Affairs) decreased marginally by 0.1 percentage point in February and was 9.6% at the end of month. The unemployment rate of men went down by 0.1 p.p. to 9.0%, the unemployment rate of women went down by 0.2 p.p. to 10.3%. In comparison with the end of February 2010, the registered unemployment rate decreased by 0.3 p.p.
At the end of February, the number of unemployed people registered by labour offices decreased (566.9 thousand persons) which was by 5.0 thousand less than a month ago; compared to the same period of the previous year the number of unemployed decreased by 16.2 thousand persons. The number of unemployed new graduated students and youths went up slightly in m-o-m comparison, their share in total number of unemployed increased by 0.1 p.p. to 6.1% (the same value as of the end of February 2010). The number of free job opportunities marginally raised in both m-o-m and y-o-y comparisons and amounted to 32.2 thousand. The number of applicants per one job opportunity was 17.6 persons, showing the 0.6 p.p. decrease intermonthly and interannually.

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¹ The indicator registered number of employees does not include: persons working under various contracts for work, working owners of enterprises and cooperating household members, who do not have contracts of employment. Data on the registered number of employees in industry (construction) also exclude agency workers, who have contracts of employment, however, not within the industry (construction).

This press release was not edited for language.

Published: 11.02.2011
The data are valid as of the release date of the publication.