On April 12, AmCham Finance Committee held a discussion with chief economists of our bank members, including Jan Vejmělek of Komerční banka, Jakub Seidler of ING Bank, Michal Skořepa of Česká spořitelna, and Helena Horská of Raiffeisenbank. 

Takeaways after the exit from the CZK floor in April 2017:

Michal Skořepa: “There were many investors who thought that after the end of the currency floor it still paid to stay in koruna. The official end of the floor turned out not to be the end of general environment and investors still had koruna as a target for investment.”

Jakub Seidler: "If you have some known unknown and everyone expects that something will happen, the market will accommodate, and it will not happen in the end."

Helena Horská together with other panelists agreed that there was a significant improvement in communication from the part of CNB, when the launch and the exit from the FX floor is compared. The analysts have agreed that as there is opinion plurality in the CNB Board and not all members of the Board present their opinions in the media, communication of CNB, as displayed in the media, has become less reliable a source of information.

2018 outlook:

Jan Vejmělek: "We do not expect 6% appreciation of koruna this year. As for the future, if there would be a recession, we would expect depreciation by 1 CZK."

Unlike the Czech National Bank CNB, all experts on our panel expect interest rates hikes in 2018.

Exchange rate forecasts::

Jan Vejmělek: Autumn 2018 25.00CZK/EUR and 24.70 CZK/EUR is a year-end forecast. 

Michal Skořepa, Jakub Seidler: 24.80 CZK/EUR in 2018 and 24.50 CZK/EUR in 2019 

Helena Horská: 24.70 CZK/EUR in 2018 and  25.00 CZK/EUR in H2 2019. 

Discussion with the panelists highlighted the fact that the impact of FX regime and the communication of the CNB was significant - importers were affected, as they did not get credits from banks. Gains on the export side were bigger than on the import side. Now there will be losses for exporters, but they could have hedged against the risk (the exit from the FX floor) and are in a better situation than importers earlier.

The analysts agreed that company investment is at a normal level, but state does not invest enough and people have their deposits in banks. Stronger capital market, IPOs, and asset management are needed.

>> Full summary of the debate available for AmCham members.

At its session on May 3, the Czech National Bank Board decided to keep interest rates unchanged. View also a CNB presentation from the quarterly meeting with analysts on May 4, sharing CNB's new forecast. >> Read an insight by Komerční banka.