The Minister of National Development talked about the importance of industrial production and mining at the central banquet of the 63rd National Miners’ Day in Gyöngyös on Thursday.

Zsuzsa Németh stressed that a country can only be strong with strong industrial production and mining in its service. All branches of industry are based on mining, she said. The past decades have shrunk mining in Hungary. The collapse of heavy industry in Eastern Europe before the change of regime, the subsequent irresponsible privatisation and the removal of production centres from the continent sealed the fate of Hungarian mining, which had seen better days, Zsuzsa Németh reminded the audience.

“Some political forces claim there is no need for production or industry in Hungary as the country can also live on services. We condemn this attitude”, the Minister declared.

As mining raw materials for the building industry always relied on investments, this field became a victim of the crisis, continued Zsuzsa Németh, who thinks the branch is facing a major boom in the foreseeable future.

You cannot judge the role of coal assets only by the role that carbon plays in electric power generation. In order to prevent investments from touching bottom and to comply with the obligations in environmental protection, Hungary should seriously consider using its coal assets with clean coal technologies, primarily in the chemical industry, Mrs Németh pointed out.
She also mentioned the advanced negotiations with leading Japanese companies about the introduction of the most efficient clean coal technology so as to build the pilot plant required for kick-off in Borsod.

Making the best possible use of resources, including mineral raw materials, is a fundamental goal for the Government. To this end, the Ministry is looking at ways to resume the previously terminated mining operations and to launch them in new areas, the Minister said.

She added that this is the aim of the recently announced mining concessions which could extend hydrocarbon mining and the use of geothermic energy; further concessions are expected in the future.

(MTI)