Czech Republic

The state should collect CZK 531.5 billion in all kinds of taxes, including customs duties, next year, some CZK 9 billion more than it plans for 2010. Taxes thus are to contribute a half to state budget revenues, according to Finance Ministry's budget proposal.

At a meeting with Czech ambassadors Wednesday, president Václav Klaus said he can see no reason for the existence of Czech embassies in a number of small EU states, saying the EU is no longer foreign territory as such.

The Czech and Luxembourg central banks put into circulation a silver coin commemorating the 700th anniversary of the marriage of John of Luxembourg (1296-1346) and Bohemian royal daughter Elizabeth Premyslid (1292-1330) Wednesday.

A new bill will allow for the permanent isolation of underage perpetrators of brutal crimes, Justice Minister Jiří Pospíšil said Wednesday in Kmetiněves, a village whose residents have demanded such a legislative change due to a local murder case.

Czech state budget gap grew to CZK 78.7bn at end-August from July's CZK 69bn, the Finance Ministry told CTK Wednesday. In the same year-ago period, state budget showed a deficit of CZK 89.6bn.

First-graders in 40 elementary schools will test this year a new script, called Comenia Script, that resembles block letters which children know from the Internet, daily Mladá fronta Dnes writes.

The Finance Ministry in the 2011 budget proposal submitted to the government earlier this week raised revenues and expenditures by CZK 127.7 billion. The planed budget deficit of CZK 135 billion has been retained.

The Czech Republic's state debt will grow by one-tenth to CZK 1,472bn in 2011, which will be in absolute terms an increase of CZK 136.2bn compared to this year, according to the Finance Ministry's data contained in the state budget draft for next year.

The Finance Ministry plans five state bond issues for CZK 30bn and wants to issue treasury bills for CZK 25bn in Q4 this year, according to an issuance calendar published by the ministry Wednesday.

The Military Technical Museum in Lešany has acquired a US tank M-47 and thus completed its unique collection of all US and Warsaw Pact tanks that influenced the world military history.