Hungarian exports to China will grow significantly thanks to a licence that has Hungary received, at the end of a long series of talks, to export frozen pork, goose and duck to China, State Secretary Péter Szijjártó said on Friday.
The newly refurbished historic Castle Bazaar (Várkert Bazár), the royal garden pavilions at the foot of the Castle hill, will be worthy of its old fame, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said at the opening of the first phase of the reconstruction on Thursday.
State and municipality officials laid the foundation stone of a training pool in Budapest’s 11th district on Thursday – part of a Government initiative aimed at ensuring that every child should learn to swim. The event was attended by Minister of State for Sports and Youth István Simicskó, Mayor of the 11th district Tamás Hoffmann and Deputy Mayor of Budapest Gábor Bagdy.
Ties with Africa, „the continent of future”, are crucial for Hungary, Minister of Foreign Affairs János Martonyi told reporters after a two-day EU-Africa summit in Brussels 3 April 2014.
According to the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH), positive employment and unemployment trends have continued. In the period December 2013-February 2014, the number of people aged 15-74 years in employment increased from 3 million 817 thousand one year ago to 4 million 53 thousand, up by 236 thousand and reaching another 22-year record high.
The Government will take several steps already this year in order to turn Budapest into the startup centre of Central and Eastern Europe, Minister of State Zoltán Cséfalvay said at the opening ceremony of the SmartMobil 2014 conference.
Twenty thousand people have volunteered to take part in the upcoming TeSzedd! ("You Pick It!") national litter collection drive during the past month, the National Waste Management Agency announced.
Minister for Rural Development Sándor Fazekas met with beekeepers to discuss development opportunities for the sector. According to beekeepers, acacia honey generates the industry's profits, and if the European Union's proposal to include acacia as an invasive species is adopted, Hungarian producers will go bankrupt.
A total of 1150 billion forints are available for the development of the Lake Fertő area cycling route network. This means that the development projects with which the cycling route network around the Hungarian part of the Lake Fertő Area will be on a par and in some cases exceed the quality of the Austrian network will be completed this year", Minister for Rural Development Sándor Fazekas said at the inauguration ceremony of a new cycling route network in the town of Hegykő, western Hungary.
This year’s job creation tender for SMEs will provide funding of altogether HUF 13bn for 1254 enterprises which amount is expected to assist the creation of 6541 new jobs, Minister of State for Employment Sándor Czomba said at a press conference.
Employers can assist their employees to repay mortgages by providing HUF 5 million as tax-free fringe benefit within five years, Minister for National Economy Mihály Varga said at the opening of Construma, the international building trade exhibition, in Budapest.
Minister for Human Resources Zoltán Balog inaugurated on Wednesday the new, 11 billion forint (EUR 35.7 million) wing of Borsod County Hospital in the northeast Hungarian city of Miskolc. The Minister said at the inauguration that the Government was aware of the county’s needs and was catering for them as best as possible.
Hungary's Consulate General in Erbil, Iraq, is set to open in the second half of this year, Deputy State Secretary for Global Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Péter Wintermantel declared at the end of his two-day visit to Iraq on Tuesday.
Hungary is ready to take part in the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) planned monitoring mission in Ukraine, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Tuesday.
Some positive signs of a possible political and diplomatic resolution to the Ukrainian crisis are beginning to emerge, Foreign Minister János Martonyi declared in Brussels where he attended a two-day meeting of NATO foreign ministers.
Economic cooperation between Hungary and Slovakia plays a key role in successfully enabling Hungarian small and medium-sized enterprises to reach international markets, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs and External Economic Relations Péter Szijjártó said on Wednesday.
Prec-Cast Ltd., based in Sátoraljaújhely, has decided to build a new, 12.000 square metre plant as the first phase of a planned investment project. State Secretary for Foreign Affairs and External Economic Relations Péter Szijjártó said at the foundation stone laying ceremony that the investment will create 300 new workplaces at one of the most important firms of the Hungarian casting industry. The company currently employs 900 people and is an important supplier to the Western European automotive industry.
Employers can assist their employees by providing up to HUF 5 million as tax-free fringe benefit to repay mortgages or purchase their homes, Minister for National Economy Mihály Varga said after signing the related ministerial decree.
The package of measures aiming to lower tax and administrative burdens, which will make life easier for both new, innovative startups and their investors, is expected to be submitted to Parliament as early as this autumn, Minister of State Zoltán Cséfalvay said at the opening ceremony of the Central European Startup Competition, an event of Startup Spring 2014.
Minister for Human Resources Zoltán Balog inaugurated a 34-bed youth hostel in the northern Hungarian village of Kömlőd on Tuesday. The hostel was built in the loft of the Calvinist church dormitory. During the religious service preceding the inauguration, Mr. Balog – a Calvinist pastor himself – said that young people need communities, adding that Hungarians belong to the community of all Hungarians living within the Carpathian basin while in religious communities the accent is on the community.
The multi-month upward trend of the volume of Hungary’s foreign trade continued in 2014: in the first month of the year, exports and imports increased by 6.1 percent and 3.6 percent, respectively, while foreign trade surplus is up by EUR 209 million, to EUR 482 million, in comparison to January 2013. Industrial output growth and the significant increase of industrial export orders have already augured positive data.
Under the pilot project “From the street to work”, a briquetting plant and a floriculture greenhouse designed to provide work for homeless people was opened in District IX of Budapest.
The crisis in Ukraine is likely to speed up the implementation of plans by the European Union to establish energy security, Enikő Győri, Minister of State for EU Affairs, declared in London on Monday.
In the past three and a half years the Government has fundamentally changed the employment policy with relation to disabled people. The currently accredited organisations employ 30,500 disabled people and a further 22,655 persons have been hired by private companies thanks to the rehabilitation card, which means lower employer contributions for companies, Minister of State for Social and Family Affairs Miklós Soltész said on Tuesday at the inauguration of a new workplace employing disabled people in the southwest Hungarian town of Csurgó.
A home for the elderly in the southwest Hungarian village of Kőkút has received a solar energy system thanks to a 22 million forint (EUR 72,000) state subsidy. Minister of State for Social and Family Affairs Miklós Soltész said at the inauguration that Government grants had made possible the renovation of several homes for the elderly in Somogy County. He said these investments contribute to offering a quality life for elderly people in need of support. The home received 88 solar panels.
The Hungarian election system is fair and legitimate and will be suitable for more than eight million voters to „express their opinion” on Sunday, Minister of State heading the Prime Minister’s Office János Lázár said at a press briefing on Tuesday.
The Hungarian government demands that Hungarian citizen Előd Tóásó, who has been in pre-trial detention in Bolivia since 2009, should be released, Zsolt Németh, MFA State Secretary declared on Monday.
The Government has raised the total allocation for the programme supporting the comprehensive reconstruction of certain sections of 4-5 digit roads to HUF 109 billion. According to an estimation based on earlier cost data, the extra funds will finance the reconstruction of some 270 km by the public road management company, Minister of National Development Zsuzsa Németh announced in Szeged on 1 April, 2014.
Vodafone will further expand its regional customer service centre in Miskolc over the next one and a half years, CEO of Vodafone Hungary Diego Massidda announced on Tuesday. State Secretary for Foreign Affairs and External Economic Relations Péter Szijjártó was present at the announcement and noted that Vodafone’s expansion is further evidence of Hungary’s growing competitiveness.
A conference on genocide prevention was held in Brussels on March 31 – April 1, on the twentieth anniversary of the genocide in Ruanda. Foreign Minister János Martonyi declared at the conference that the international community, despite the efforts made over the past 20 years, was still unable to avert the commitment of crimes against humanity and other atrocities.