At least half of EU 2014-2020 development funds must be applied to direct economic development in general, and to the stimulation of the development of small and medium-sized enterprises in particular, as opposed to the 16 percent in the seven-year period ending now, said Minister of State at the Ministry for National Economy Zoltán Cséfalvay at a conference on Tuesday.

At the event organized by the Századvég Foundation, the Széll Kálmán Foundation and economic daily Heti Válasz the Minister of State stressed that the Hungarian economy has come to a turning point as multinational companies and corporations have been increasingly producing goods of higher added value due to their R&D activities and it is time for the SME sector to joint this process.

According to the assessment of the Minister of State, the new taxes, such as the lump-sum tax for micro enterprises and the small business tax entering into effect as of January next year will both help reduce significantly the tax burden of the SME sector.
He stressed that these two levies will each cut the liabilities of enterprises by 25-30bn HUF annually.

Enterprises are also assisted by the Job Protection Action Plan, which contributes 30bn forints for the improvement of the situation of SMEs, Zoltán Cséfalvay said adding that the Government has reformed the taxation system by reducing liabilities on labour and increasing levies on consumption.

The current process of taxation reform has been completed and thus “the tax system will operate in its final form” as of 2013.

Analyzing the key problems which the SME sector has been confronted with he mentioned as the most pressing of these the issue of vocational training. It seems, he said, that large companies have come to manage to exploit the opportunities provided by the dual education system but the SME sector cannot. But small and medium-sized enterprises which do not spend on training skilled workers should not complain about the shortage of skilled labour force. He also reminded the audience that SMEs are adversely affected by overdue payments in the supply chain and diminishing competitiveness due to the grey and black economy.

In the opinion of the Minister of State teaching entrepreneurship has been missing from higher education while András Lánczi, President of Századvég Foundation, said in the keynote speech at the beginning of the conference that political economy should be reintroduced in higher education curricula as this subject has been taught at each major universities of the world, among them at the University of Harvard.

(Ministry for National Economy)