At the opening of the International Telecommunication Union’s World Congress, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that Central Europe’s role in the digital economy will become more important; in the coming one or one and a half decades, this region will be the growth engine of the European Union.
He added that within the EU it is Hungary where the digital economy is developing at the fastest pace, and the sector’s importance within the national economy is higher than the EU average. The digital economy accounts for 21-22 per cent of the Hungarian GDP, and it employs four hundred thousand people – about 15 per cent of those in employment; thus Hungary is ranked third, following Ireland and Finland, he added.
Mr. Orbán also noted that the rapid changes in the modern world – such as modern-day mass migration or the digitalisation of the world economy – pose challenges to democratic political systems. Everybody would like to see rapid and deep changes that improve people’s quality of life, but the question remains as to how this can be done without people feeling as if control over the world’s development has slipped out of their hands, he said.
We can “only do this, if we listen to them”, he stressed. With the help of the national consultation system – which in recent years has become a part of the democratic culture in Hungary – it has become possible, he said , to hear the public’s opinion before decisions of strategic importance are made on the direction developments should take.
Mr. Orbán also pointed out that as part of the national consultation on internet use (InternetKon), people were asked to give clear answers on what direction developments should take and on how they intend to use the opportunities of the digital economy. He also listed those six areas, which – according to the respondents – should be improved, including tightening compliance with regulations and measures on child protection.
He also talked about the need for the Government to provide extraordinary support for the digital development of domestic companies. He noted that since 2010 a total of HUF 16 billion has been allocated to help the IT development of more than 1,000 companies, and the state is aiming to increase this amount eight-fold in the coming years. As a result, HUF 130 billion will be spent on infocommunications (ICT) development, from which the activities of some 8,000 ICT-related companies will be subsidised. The Prime Minister thinks that the sector could be further developed, as there is still a need for some thousands of new and export-capable SMEs, as well as for ten thousand young engineers and computer scientists. He pointed out that the digital economy accounts for some 8 per cent of total Hungarian exports, and the 10 per cent in R&D contributions can also be seen as a significant share. There has already been a time when Central Europe played an important role in telecommunications, Mr. Orbán recalled.
The Prime Minister mentioned Tivadar Puskás as one of the Hungarian inventors and founding fathers of telecommunications; according to Mr. Orbán, Hungarians should be grateful to him for making it possible to be one of the founders of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). Humanity has stepped into a new communications era and an entirely new economic sector was born when Tivadar Puskás invented and built the “Telephone Herald”, the Prime Minister highlighted.