Comment by Jaromír Šindel, Chief Economist of the Czech Bank of Economics: The Czech economy closed last year with stronger growth than originally expected. The Czech economy could repeat its 2.6% annual growth this year. Household consumption was the driving force at the end of last year, supported by stronger wage growth, but also by strong growth in manufacturing. However, higher wage costs have far outpaced productivity growth, and so still elevated core inflation will remain the central bank's focus, which should result in the CNB interest rate holding steady at 3.5%.

Comment by Jaromír Šindel, Chief Economist of the CBA: Economic growth slowed down at the end of last year, but still achieved solid 0.5% quarter-on-quarter GDP growth.The structure of growth has not changed significantly - consumption is dominant, which is probably not true of investment. This is in line with the latest sentiment data. A more positive sign is improving productivity. The outlook for this year is a repeat of last year's 2.5% growth, thanks to a better outlook for real wage growth and a change in fiscal policy. Conversely, weaker external demand, even given industrial sentiment, is likely to be a drag on stronger economic growth.

Comment by Jaromír Šindel, Chief Economist of the CBA: The stronger quarter-on-quarter GDP growth of 0.8% in Q3 mainly reflected foreign trade, while the contribution of domestic demand was not as strong as in the previous quarter. Moreover, there has been a continuous decline in fixed investment excluding construction investment, undermining the future potential of the economy and keeping productivity growth low and fuelling inflationary growth in unit labour costs (see five key points below).