Primark is scheduled to open its second store in Olympia Brno on Sept. 14, roughly a year after opening its first on Wenceslas Square in Prague. Sales director Maciej Podwojski says Czech shoppers welcomed the shop’s arrival, giving the Irish retailer the confidence it needed to hire 190 new employees. It’s to be the company’s 406 store worldwide, with still newer ones planned for Romania and Slovakia.
Panasonic plans to invest €145 million into its old television factory in Pilsen to expand its production of air-to-water heat pumps. Initial units could start rolling off the production lines by April 2023. The plan is for the facility to be producing half a million units by March 2026, a move that could eventually result in work for 2,000 people. The company has begun reconstruction work, following the ending of TV production this year. Some recording devices and blu-ray unit output will continue on-site. Panasonic first began producing heat pumps in Pilsen in 2018, but the energy crisis and uncertainty over gas supplies has made them nearly impossible to procure in recent months. At its height, television production in Pilsen employed around 7,500 people, though just one-third of them were on Panasonic’s books permanently.
Prague’s ring road took a small step closer to completion when the country’s highest court struck down a legal injunction against the project by the village of Dolní Chabry. The municipality sued the City of Prague over the planned route for the D0 ring road back in 2014, but lost the case. But it refused to accept the decision and filed a procedural motion against the ruling. Yesterday’s finding closes the door on the stalling tactic. It’s a hopeful moment for anyone who’s sick of driving through (rather than around) the Czech capital. Prague’s deputy mayor Petr Hlaváček described it as a breakthrough. “We believe today’s decision means that all the other attempts to question the ring road’s route will be taken off the table.”
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