Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Speech at the Inauguration of Master Good Limited’s New Plant
Good Afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen,
My warmest greetings to all of you, and especially to our kind hosts. Yesterday, we inaugurated a chocolate factory in Heves County, today we are here with you and tomorrow we will be inaugurating a Hungarian pharmaceuticals factory in Pilisborosjenő. Nobody claims that everything is perfect in Hungary, nor that life is easy, but it would seem that there is plenty of steam in the Hungarian economy, and that fills us with hope. I was last here in your city in February of 2014, I think, immediately following the outbreak of the crisis in Ukraine, when under the cover of darkness I conducted a spot check of the local hospital to see how prepared they were for the worst case scenario. Prior to that, I was here among you in perhaps April of 2006 during a campaign for an election that we subsequently lost and which taught us that there are professions in which one must work extremely hard even to achieve defeat. But that’s no reason for one to lose faith; it instead drives us to feel that when we do achieve success and when we do achieve victory, then we should hold it in very high esteem.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I also checked when Kisvárda last provided a Minister to the Hungarian Government, and it was almost 70 years ago, so my congratulations to my friend and fellow Member of Parliament Miklós [Seszták, Minister of National Economy] and to the people of Kisvárda for having provided a Minister to Hungary’s Government who will hopefully be upstanding and will perform his duties successfully. I am glad to be here with you today, and especially in such a beautifully decorated hall. The organisation of the inauguration ceremony must have been a difficult task in itself, but the fact that we can be here today is the end result of an even greater work. This day, respected Bárány family, has come about because, continuing a family tradition that goes back several generations, over the course of twenty years you have rebuilt a successful business, which you have now further expanded. We, who are here today as guests, have come here today to raise our hats to you and to celebrate the family’s latest success together with you.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The performance of the Bárány family is a testimony. It is a testimony to the fact that Hungary and the Hungarian economy can be and is made great by families who are prepared to go into enterprise. An entrepreneurial spirit is a huge blessing and a great strength in the life of a family. It is thanks to this strength that this plant, which was built up out of practically nothing, employs over 1300 people today, and if I have read the figures correctly it is a company that generates annual revenues of some 31 billion forints. It is thanks to this strength that – having heeded the advice of your grandfather – you have succeeded in establishing Central Europe’s largest poultry processing plant, and as I have seen from the statistics the new plant that we are inaugurating today is one of only five of its kind in the whole of Europe. Please allow me to express my sincere congratulations to you on this international success. I also see that you now export to South Korea, to China and to South Africa. Those who know you, and this is not the first time we are together, we have been together at other inauguration ceremonies where people from the trade have said that the key to the success of your company and your family is that the company is always searching for new channels and is never satisfied with the results it has already achieved. And we have heard your plans: the company wants to continue growing. This is the path that places not just companies but countries above or below each other in today’s modern competition between national economies. To never be satisfied, to effect change, to search for new paths, to take risks and to work hard.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
But there is also something else behind your success. It seems to me that you are true local patriots. I also checked the official figures in this respect, and my apologies for doing so. What I read was that the Master Good Group is one of northern Hungary’s largest employers and has donated some 40 million forints in funding to various civil, cultural and sports organisations in recent years. This means that in addition to its own success, the company also plays a part in bearing public burdens and in furthering the public good. This is something we should appreciate, especially these days when huge foreign-owned companies, who consume our bread, who we allow among us and who earn vast profits in the tens of billions of forints from us, nevertheless abuse their status as guests and want to squirm their way out of having to pay taxes. But we haven’t come here today to talk about such sombre issues, but to celebrate. By all accounts, there are Hungarian companies who not only pay their taxes and not only invest, but who as true local patriots also feel that it is important to support local civil, cultural and sports initiatives. I must thank the Bárány family in the name of Hungary for doing so.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We Hungarians are an entrepreneurial nation. I think the reason we go into enterprise is because we like freedom. We perform well – this is how we are – if we can decide ourselves what to embark on and if we are in control of our fate. We are successful if we can think and create freely. Dictatorships aren’t for us. There are some who operate well in that environment, but it isn’t made for the Hungarians. We need freedom, opportunity and room for enterprise, and if we receive it then the Hungarians perform, are successful and achieve internationally acknowledged results.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
This is not a new fashion in Hungary that is dictated by the spirit of the age. Freedom is a centuries old tradition in Hungary, which families have preserved and salvaged from ages past. Nothing succeeded in destroying this “be your own master if you have no servant” mentality during the course of our history, despite the fact that there were many foreign powers that attempted to do so. Few people are more aware of this in Hungary than the Bárány family. The communists took everything that consecutive generations had accumulated through their own hard work away from countless Hungarian families. Perhaps many of you who are here today still remember – because I see that you are not all teenagers – that during socialism the state stigmatised people who wanted to achieve more and who went into enterprise within the meagre limits available as crooks. It is from these depths that we set out a quarter of a century ago. It is for this reason that, although the Hungarians have the required will and entrepreneurial spirit, it is still very difficult to find Hungarian enterprises that represent an order of magnitude such as our kind hosts here today.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
With the change of regime we not only regained our political freedom, but we also opened the gates before Hungarians who have an entrepreneurial spirit. These were difficult times in the late eighties and early nineties. With the sudden appearance of capitalism, Hungarian enterprises had no choice but to quickly learn that they could only rely on their own strength, but the best still managed to stay afloat and gain strength from the competition. Today, Hungary can be proud of all of the companies and families that survived that period. Yes, respected Báráby family, we are proud of you because you have proven to all of us and to the generations that will follow that a Hungarian enterprise can rise to a level with which it makes a sector of the Hungarian food industry one of the most successful in Europe.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Our spirit of success is still kept alive by small and medium-sized enterprises today. The only reason there is economic growth and increasing employment in Hungary today is because the Hungarian entrepreneurial spirit has not and will not give up. In the news, we naturally usually only hear about large international investment projects, but the truth is that seventy-five out of every one-hundred working Hungarians owe their living to Hungarian small and medium-sized enterprises. The production figures are different, but the employment figure clearly indicate that without small and medium-sized enterprises hundreds of thousands of Hungarian families would be without a living. And so we must appreciate them, and in view of our commitment to our country we must regard as our own national objective and interest that small and medium-sized enterprises in Hungary should be successful. I believe that the Hungarian economy will be able to remain on a stable growth trajectory and will be rock solid if the number of successful small and medium-sized enterprises increases significantly, and is in fact multiplied. And so in addition to the existing enterprises we must also help new ones into existence. We have been doing to for a long time and we have been searching for the instruments, meaning the Hungarian government apparatus has been looking for the tools, with which we can contribute to the success of Hungarian enterprises. The company’s President and CEO, our kind Host, has already spoken about the various forms of funding available. It is important to note that this company also provides a good example of the fact that the loans, and especially the export loans, provided by the Hungarian banking system, or rather by the part of the Hungarian banking system that is in Hungarian hands, are a must and will continue to be very important. A loan provided by the Hungarian Export-Import Bank also contributed to the realisation of this project.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Hungarian Government and Hungary made the right decision when it undertook to open the doors of eastern markets to Hungarian enterprises. Hungary must play the role of middle-man to improve the positions of Hungarian enterprises on eastern markets. We would like these gates to be wide open before Hungarian entrepreneurs and businesses, and we will continue to work to open more and more such gates in the upcoming period.
Our Esteemed Host and Respected Company President,
We have succeeded in ensuring that Hungarian small and medium-sized enterprises will have access to more funding during the upcoming seven-year European Union financing period. We will be making the drawing down and distribution of funding much simpler and easier, and 60 percent of funding received from the European Union will be injected directly into the economy and into Hungarian enterprises, to you.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear People of Kisvárda, Dear Minister,
I would like to once again congratulate our host. Thank you for not giving up despite how difficult it must have sometimes been. What I see here is reassuring because it indicates to all of us that Hungary will have successful entrepreneurs and successful businesses in the future. My wish for the Bárány family is that they continue to enjoy success and continue to proclaim the good reputation of Hungary throughout the world. My wish is that the family enjoy their success and I would like to especially emphasise that my wish is that the success of your family also be enjoyed by the company’s every single employee.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Thank you for your kind attention.