Transport and communications - 1. quarter of 2008

In Q1 2008, seasonally adjusted sales in transport dropped, quarter-on-quarter, by 0.5% at constant prices and, in the year-on-year comparison, they increased by 1.2%. Not seasonally adjusted sales decreased by 0.3%. The total drop in transport came mainly from 'transport via pipelines' and 'other land transport'. In communications seasonally adjusted sales increased by 0.6%, quarter-on-quarter, and by 3.7%, year-on-year, not adjusted by 3.0%.
Transport:

Seasonally adjusted sales in 'transport' dropped, quarter-on-quarter, by 0.5% at constant prices. The trend component decreased like in the previous quarter by 0.3% while on average for the previous four quarters it grew by 1.0% (Table 3a).

Graph 1
Year-on-year, with seasonal and calendar adjustments (there was one working day more in Q1 2008) the sales increased by 1.2 %. After eight quarters of continuous growth, the sales without adjustment dropped 0.3%, y-o-y.

There were more reasons. The drop of sales was contributed to, among other things, by the weather which this year corresponded more with typical weather conditions in winter than the last year and certain effect may also come from the shift of Easter holiday from April to March. Similar development was recorded also in external trade to which mainly the most important in terms of volume 'other land transport', contributing by 0.3 p.p. to the total drop, is relatively closely related. Even though 'transport via pipelines' ranks among divisions of transport less important in terms of contribution, its marked drop in Q1 caused that its contribution (0.7 p.p.) to the total decrease in transport was negative. The drop of sales in 'transport via pipelines' was affected especially by outage of one refinery and the exchange rate changes because the prices of oil transported outside the territory of the CR are fixed in USD. Partial effect might come from lower demand for fuel which was again subject to a different weather compared to the Q1 2007. This phenomenon affected also the drop of sales in 'inland water transport' by 7.0%. Other transport divisions recorded a growth in Q1, even though only the growth in 'air transport' can be qualified as important. Price increases, drop of growth rate in 'other land transport' and a slow-down of the external trade growth resulted in deceleration of growth of sales in 'supporting and auxiliary transport activities' which for more than a year set the growth rate in transport in total (over the whole year 2007 they increased by 14.3%, in Q1 only by 0.7%). A different development was recorded only for 'activities of travel agencies and tour operators' which like 'air transport' benefited from increased interest in traveling. It was a paradox that the weather which had an adverse effect on some of the above mentioned transport divisions, contributed, on the other hand, to the growth of tourism-related divisions.


Post and telecommunications :

Seasonally adjusted sales in 'post and telecommunications' increased by 0.6 % quarter-on-quarter at constant prices. The trend component for the corresponding period increased by 0.5 %, which was by 0.8 percentage point less than the average growth for the last four quarters (Table 3b).

Graph 2
Year-on-year, with seasonal and calendar adjustments, sales increased by 3.7 %, without adjustment by 3.0 %. The total growth was contributed to by telecommunications by 3.1 p.p., while 'post and courier activities' recorded a negative contribution by 0.1 p.p. (see Table 2b). Sales in 'post and courier activities' after eight quarters of incessant growth decreased by 1.4%. In 'telecommunications' the continuous growth went on from the beginning of data collection, i.e. from 1997, however, the dynamics of growth compared with the average for the previous four quarters decreased by 1.4 p.p.
Seasonally adjusted sales in transport and communications dropped in Q1 by 0.2%, quarter-on-quarter, at constant prices. In the year- on-year comparison, sales increased by 2.0% and by 0.8% not seasonally adjusted.

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Note:
1) The whole time series are seasonally adjusted every quarter; indices in the graph are changed retroactively.

Contact person: Alena Hellerová, phone: 274052921, e-mail: alena.hellerova@csu.gov.cz
Data source: CZSO direct survey in enterprises
End of data collection: 7 May 2008
End of data processing: 13 May 2008
Data for Q4 2007 are preliminary, revised data for all months of 2007 will be known in June 2008, at the latest.
Quarterly data since 1997 are available in time series ( /financial_indicators_time_series ).