“Hungary is doing well in developing rural power centres”, the Prime Minister said in Kecskemét at the inauguration of the State Secretariat for Agrarian and Rural Development, part of the Prime Minister’s Office.
The Office of the Prime Minister’s State Secretariat for Agrarian and Rural Development is the first State Secretariat to operate outside the capital. The Prime Minister thanked Minister of State for Agrarian and Rural Development Zsolt Miklós, for his pioneering role in the move.
Rural Hungary must play an equal role to the capital; a country, despite Budapest’s every beauty and strength, cannot simply consist of a capital city, the Prime Minister stressed.
“Hungary is doing well in developing rural power centres”, the Prime Minister continued, “and this contributes to the more balanced distribution of resources, career opportunities and quality intellectual life”. However, the Prime Minister also expects these rural power centres to be production centres, nurture traditions and provide jobs to the surrounding area.
The State Secretariat for Agrarian and Rural Development will play a huge role in helping the Government realise its rural development policies and in ensuring that the target ratio of 80:20 of small and medium sized estates as opposed to large estates is successfully met, including bringing the distribution of funding in line to these proportions, the Prime Minister said.
The State Secretariat will be one of the most important public administration workshops in the upcoming period in view of the fact that it will be responsible for the distribution of over 1200 billion forints (EUR 3.8bn) in funding, Mr. Orbán said, adding that the Government plans to spend 518 billion forints (EUR 1.6bn) to facilitate the development of small and medium-sized businesses operating within the agrarian sector and 76 billion forints (EUR 240m) on supporting young farmers.
The Prime Minister characterised Kecskemét as one of the most dynamically developing Hungarian cities, pointing out that he will be visiting the city again next week for the launching of the latest Mercedes model and was there recently as a guest of Hungarian food industry giant Univer.