Prague, June 5 (CTK) – The share of companies’ contribution to financing culture in the Czech Republic has been declining, though it remains the largest of all resources, while the weight of households in this respect has been rising, according to a report released by the authorities.
The culture sector’s financial results, released by the Czech Statistical Office (CSU) together with the National and consulting centre for culture (NIPOS), show that some 226.6 billion crowns went to culture in 2015, which was a 0.4-percent increase compared with the preceding year.
Almost two-thirds of the sum was provided by business companies.
Households were the second largest contributor, spending a total of 44.9 billion crowns on culture. This was a 1.5-percent decrease year-on-year, but still the households’ weight in culture spending had steadily risen in the preceding five years.
People spent money mainly on TV and radio fees, cinema, books and press (a total of 31.4 billion crowns), but much less on visits to theatre, concerts or exhibitions or the purchase of works of arts and souvenirs (8.5 billion).
The spending on culture made up 3.2 percent of households’ overall expenditures in 2015.
Public budgets were the third largest contributor to culture, but their share among the money resources has been rising, as has been the share of households.
The share of NGOs’ support dropped by almost 50 percent between 2010 and 2015.
In 2015, the Culture Ministry’s budget reached about 11 billion crowns. It has gradually risen in 2016 and 2017, and the 2018 draft budget preliminarily assigns 13.2 billion crowns to culture.
The financial resources differ in various branches of culture, the statistical figures show.
Heritage conservation, performing arts and artistic education have been prevailingly, at about 60 percent, supported from public budgets, while the market-oriented branches such as plastic arts, press, media, architecture and advertising, are mainly supported by companies and households.
Almost 34.3 billion crowns went to culture from public budgets in 2015, which was 4.5 percent less than in the preceding year. The overall sum made up 1.93 percent of public budgets.
It included the spending on culture by the Culture Ministry and other ministries, regions, municipalities and state funds such as the fund for culture and the fund for support and development of Czech cinematography.
Out of them, the largest amount of money, almost 49 percent, was provided by municipalities.
($1=23.545 crowns)
rtj/dr/kva
