The government pledges to continue reducing the sovereign debt and to maintain a strict fiscal policy for financial stability and predictability, parliamentary state secretary to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó claimed on Thursday in Budapest.
In his address delivered on the publication of the sixteenth annual report of the Hungarian European Business Council (HEBC), the state secretary pointed out that the government aimed for Hungary to have the highest industrial contribution to the national output in the EU, to have the highest operating capital per person in Central Europe, and to have the highest ratio of export to national output in the European Union.
For achieving these goals, essential tools are implementation of industrial utility cuts to follow retail utility cuts, carrying on with strategic agreements, and restructuring the system of institutions for foreign affairs and trade, he emphasized.
At the event attended by members of the diplomatic corps, Péter Szijjártó explained that the job protection action plan was crucial to re-industrialisation, and that the employment had reached record heights in the first half of this year. Cutting down on work-related taxes represented the right course to be followed, as he pointed out, adding that the high European energy prices also needed radical cuts. He noted that the government has concluded 44 strategic agreements so far, and planned to continue in the future.
Mr Szijjártó stated that the government aimed to direct one third of all exports outside the EU by 2018, and the ratio of small and medium-sized enterprises needed increased participation in exports.
He also explained that a uniform Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade had been set up to supervise the economic actors that may influence the foreign trade and investment output. Enforcement of Hungarian interests is crucial, and in this respect, foreign policy is not an end but a means, a powerful resource, he assumed, and added that the system of foreign representation would be reorganised along the same lines.
The state secretary reminded that the report issued by HEBC increasingly suggested the necessity of a new attitude and approach in the world. The global financial crash and recession showed that the old economic model was no longer adequate. The government shared this opinion and, accordingly, developed and implemented a strategy of economic policy after 2010, as a result of which Hungary had once again become a place worth living, working and starting a family in, he said.
He stated that the economic political action implemented since 2010 had brought about a growth reversal in 2013, and may set Hungary to a permanent growth path in 2014. All these are the fruit of the government pursuing the much-criticised and attacked economic policy, instead of the restrictive measures powerfully supported by certain international financial organisations, he believes.
Mr Szijjártó said sustainable and inclusive growth was crucial indeed, which was also urged by HEBC. It has visible signs already: the 3.5 percent economic growth achieved in the first quarter of the current year is promising, as is the 7.2 percent and over 22 percent rise in investments seen last year and in the first months of this year, respectively, in the wake of the 2012 slump. He added to the list that contracts were concluded in excess of HUF 220 billion in the second stage of the funding for growth programme, 98 percent of which were new loans providing proof that companies trusted the future and were more encouraged to start an enterprise than before.
The Hungarian European Business Council is the Hungarian business council of the Brussels-based European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT), a forum of Hungarian senior managers of the following multinational companies: ABB, AkzoNobel, British Telecom, Ericsson, GDF SUEZ, HEINEKEN, Magyar Telekom, Nestlé, Nokia, OMV, Philips, SAP, Shell, SKF and Volvo Group Trucks. The organisation aims at assisting the development of the Hungarian economy and growing competitiveness in a way that is free of politics, only through offering their experience with foreign investments.