Page 5 - bne IntelliNews magazine February 2025

bne February 2025 Companies & Markets I 5
Czechia exported beer worth CZK2.15bn to Germany and worth CZK1.64 bn to Slovakia from January to October 2024. Along with Russia, Poland is the only other destination where the volume of exports exceeded CZK0.5bn.
The news of increased beer exports to Russia reinvigorated the reporting of more goods registering a spike in exports to Russia even though the overall volume of exported goods to Russia continues to fall.
SZ wrote that the volume of exported organic chemicals increased from January – October 2024 by 39.9% y/y to just over CZK2bn. Furniture, hospital beds spiked by 144.1% to CZK0.54bn, plastic products by 34.8% to CZK71bn, and oil seeds such as poppy seeds by 35.2%. to CZK0.42bn.
Both of the two Czech hospital bed producers – Linet and Proma Reha – told SZ that they are not exporting any products to Russia, while the Chair of the Czech poppy association, Pavel Cihlář told SZ “I don’t know who exports there [to Russia].”
Russian-linked businesses inside Czechia, which has traditionally been a popular destination for Russian elites, who sent their children for schooling there and purchased lucrative real estate in the country’s prime locations, remain also active.
Investigative website Page Not Found published a story this week that Russian discount retail chain Mere, which is facing sanctions in Ukraine, is opening a fifth warehouse in Czechia.
Mere has launched its expansion in outskirt regions in northern Bohemia, struggling with high unemployment and hoist of social issues. It opened its first store in 2019 in the northwest town of Most, whose continued struggles to catch up with the rest of the country bne IntelliNews covered last year, and the latest store is to open in the regional capital Ústí nad Labem.
In a twist of irony, Mere is taking advantage of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who fled to Czechia and were quickly absorbed by manual and low-paid jobs in the labour market designed to swallow a cheap workforce.
Head of the National Agency to combat organized crime (NCOZ), Jiří Mazánek told SZ in an interview this week that NCOZ is addressing “several cases linked to sanctions” against Russia.
“It is organized crime of Russian type involving, of course, other countries in the region,” Mazánek said, adding that “we are afraid Czechia serves to launder dirty money and that our legislation is weak in this regard.”
Czechia wraps up work on pipeline expansion to end reliance on Russian oil
Newsbase
Czechia is on track to end its reliance on Russian oil within the next few months following the completion of key technical work on the TAL-PLUS oil pipeline expansion, announced by Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala on January 14.
The TAL-PLUS project, approved by the Czech government in November 2022, has expanded the transport capacity of the Transalpine Pipeline (TAL), enabling the country to fully replace Russian oil supplies with up to 8mn tonnes per year (160,000 barrels per day) of crude via the TAL and IKL pipelines. This volume is sufficient to meet Czechia’s total demand. Until now, Czechia could only secure 3-4mn tpy of crude from TAL.
Final operational tests and certifications of the upgraded system, conducted by Czech oil transmission operator MERO in partnership with the TAL consortium, are expected to conclude in the coming months. Full reliance on non-Russian oil transported through the TAL and IKL pipelines is anticipated by mid-year.
"Construction work on the TAL pipeline expansion has been successfully completed. This marks a pivotal moment for our energy security, ending decades of dependency on Russian oil
and vulnerability to its regime. After eliminating reliance on Russian gas last year, we will now achieve independence from Russian oil," Fiala said.
Czech Finance Minister Zbyněk Stanjura stressed how quickly the project costing CZK1.6bn ($65mn) had been implemented. It was funded entirely by MERO without impacting the state budget. “In just two years since its approval, TAL-PLUS is technically prepared to secure the Czech Republic's full oil supply from the west," he said.
MERO CEO Jaroslav Pantůček described the project as one of the company’s most significant investments, noting that the system has already been successfully tested and is ready to replace Russian oil supplies in case of disruptions.
Czechia is one of the few EU markets still accepting Russian oil, alongside Hungary and Slovakia. The EU placed an embargo on Russian oil imports at the end of 2022 in response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, but provided a temporary exemption to Czechia, Hungary and Slovakia, in light of their lack of alternatives to importing Russian crude via the Soviet-era Druzhba system.
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