As the number of construction sector contracts increased by 15 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, the Hungarian construction sector appears to have turned the corner this year and the recession may be coming to an end, Deputy State Secretary for Domestic Economy Áron Márk Lenner said at the opening ceremony of the Construma International Building Trade Exhibition.

As the Deputy State Secretary stressed, the recession of Hungary’s construction sector commenced before the onset of the economic crisis and will also last longer. First, in 2006 and 2007 fiscal consolidation withdrew financing from state investment projects and the global crisis developed in the two years after that. The confidence crisis caused by the credit crunch has also affected this industrial sector since 2010.

In the past year and a half, the Government has placed special emphasis on dealing with the recession of the construction sector. As the first step, small enterprises which had not formerly received the due amount of VAT were exempted of paying VAT within the framework of the Job Protection Action Plan, and new legislation has recently been adopted to eradicate chain debts, with relation to which a performance certification organisaiton will be established as one of its instruments, the Deputy State Secretary announced.
Áron Márk Lenner and Hungexpo Chief Executive Officer Gábor Ganczer presented this year’s Construma awards and those of its special exhibition, Hungarotherm.

(Ministry for National Economy)