Prague - New data on the Czech economy show that the pessimism was ungrounded, as Czech industrial producers managed to withstand the negative influence of the government-imposed austerity.
The budget cuts as well as decreased consumption of households led the domestic demand for industrial products to fall one tenth since the second quarter of 2011.
However, the producers managed to offset this by exporting abroad.
Export revenues still grow by more than 10 percent, data from December 2011 show.
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Too late, too soon
Four years ago, Czech companies were still hiring new employees even when the global credit crunch was already raging and the productivity was decreasing. They started to lay off staff no sooner than six months after the Lehman Brothers' fall.
Last year, in order to avoid repeating the same mistake, they overreacted. Czech firms started to lay off massively before the fears of a new debt-driven recession in Europe could even confirm.
Thus, paradoxically, the firms that laid off large numbers of workers at the end of 2011 were January's biggest losers.
And this is where the famous quote by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt pops to mind. It appears that even in an European debt crisis at the beginning of the 21st century's second decade, the only thing to fear is still fear itself.
And indeed, the Confederation of Industry of the Czech Republic is optimistic. "Firms are better prepared for the current situation than they were in 2008 and 2009, and they act accordingly," said the union's vice president Radek Špicar.
