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CRACKS START TO SHOW IN CZECH GLASS SECTOR
Robert Anderson

Visitors to Prague might assume from the profusion of crystal shops that the iconic Czech glass industry was booming. But after dealing with the rise and fall of Communism it now faces its greatest challenge: cheap Asian competition.
Its glass industry, the second biggest in the world before the second world war, survived the collapse of Communism in 1989 in better shape than many other Czech industries because it was not so dependent on the old Soviet bloc markets.
However, Crystalex, the dominant producer of utility glass, itself fared less well because some of its best plants such as Moser, the luxury glass producer in Karlovy Vary, were spun off, while the rest languished under state ownership.
Finally, in 1997, Crystalex was privatised for Kc400m (then $13m) through a controversial tender. Foreign bidders lost out to Porcela Plus, a former state ceramics trading company with good political connections.
Since 1997 Porcela Plus has slimmed down Crystalex from six plants to three while acquiring three new plants under the Bohemia Crystalex Trading (BCT) umbrella and halving the overall workforce to 5,700.
«We're still not finished obviously,» says Peter Gonda, BCT's Czech-Canadian chief operations officer, but he points out that making further cuts is difficult.
For instance, production at the Karolinka plant in Moravia has been halted but products from Novy Bor in North Bohemia are still sent there to be hand decorated because its skilled workers refuse to move and there is no space for them anyway at Novy Bor, which is working at 90 per cent capacity.
Since he joined two years ago, Mr Gonda has focused on trying to convert BCT into a proper operating company, rather than merely the trading arm of six separate production units making lead crystal, sodium-potash glass and technical glass. This restructuring has proved problematic because minority shareholders are blocking the formal legal merger of the companies. This has forced BCT to improvise.
BCT's biggest challenge however has not been in production but in sales, 90 per cent of which are exports.
Under Communism, marketing was rudimentary and Crystalex's sales were handled by a separate state trading company to minimise contacts with the outside world. Both therefore required a drastic overhaul, but Crystalex has not had sufficient financial resources to invest in either its own sales network or its famous Bohemia Crystal and Bohemia Glass brands.
This puts Crystalex at a big disadvantage against luxury glass producers, while leaving it vulnerable to cheap utility glass competitors from Asia, particularly in the US market, which accounts for 30 per cent of its sales.
The Asian threat is a real one, particularly in the soda-potash glass market, which makes up one-third of the group's sales.

ROBERT ANDERSON
Tratto dal «Financial Times» del 20 marzo

• Bidders: offerenti, concorrenti
• Ceramics trading company: societą commerciale del settore della ceramica
• Chief operations officer: amministratore delegato
• Crystal shops: cristallerie
• Cuts: tagli
• Exports: esportazioni
• Glass industry: industria vetraria
• (to) Hand-decorate: decorare a mano
• Kc: Corona ceca
• Lead crystal: cristallo di piombo
• Luxury glass: vetreria/vetro di lusso
• Merger: fusione
• Minority shareholders: azionisti di minoranza
• Operating company: societą operativa
• Overhaul: revisione
• Plants: stabilimenti
• Producers: produttori
• Production units: unitą di produzione
• Sales: vendite
• Sales network: rete di vendita
• Skilled workers: operai specializzati
• Sodium-potash glass: vetro sodico-potassico
• Soviet bloc markets: mercati del blocco sovietico
• (to) Spin off: scorporare (una societą)
• State ownership: proprietą statale
• Technical glass: vetro tecnico
• Tender: offerta
• Trading arm: braccio commerciale
• Utility glass: vetro (d'uso) comune
• Workforce: forza lavoro, dipendenti
• Working capacity: capacitą lavorativa