Hungary has opened its doors to all investors who are willing to contribute to the economic growth of the country. This has been underlined many times by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán throughout the country at several factory foundation stone laying ceremonies and plant inaugurations during the last month.

The Hungarian Government is mainly focusing on the production sector. "The reindustrialisation of Hungary is progressing at a good pace as the opening of an electronic waste recycling centre in Karcag also demonstrates", Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated on 18 March 2014 at the opening of a new 3.6 billion forint plant, which will directly create 170 jobs has the potential for an additional 400-500 jobs resulting from associated businesses in the future. Industrial production makes up 23 percent of the national economy in Hungary, more than the European Union average of 15 percent, which makes Hungary the third most industrialised country after Germany and the Czech Republic, Prime Minister Orbán stated. Hungary has a good chance of competing to become Europe's most industrialised country within the next four years. He emphasised that large international industrial companies are a must for the development of Hungarian industry, adding that "we are very pleased about such plants being opened". “Without the investments of big international companies there would be no jobs or economic growth”, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said this at the inauguration of Procter and Gamble’s new plant in Gyöngyös on the 11 March 2014. A clear distinction should, however, be made between desirable and non-desirable foreign investors, the latter being those that only want to skim the Hungarian market and take away business opportunities from others, he pointed out, adding that people who failed to make this distinction were working against their country and city. Large international corporations like Procter and Gamble should be supported, Prime Minister Orbán underlined, since the company has created a thousand jobs in Hungary, does business with around 400 local suppliers and is also known for its charitable activities. He stated that during the course of negotiations, Procter and Gamble managers had highlighted Hungary's central position within the region, flexible labour-market regulations and skilled workforce as the reasons they had chosen Hungary as the site of their new plant. This was also highlighted at the opening of the 3rd Hungarian-Turkish Business Forum in Budapest on 18 February 2014, where the Prime Minister stated: "Hungary has become a competitive state which in the past few years has grown into a production hub and should further develop into an area for European innovation". Takata's €68 million investment in Miskolc is a fine example of this and of how the northeast Hungarian city is once again becoming an industrial and economic centre, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated at the foundation stone laying ceremony for the Japanese car supplier's new plant on 12 March 2014. The Prime Minister said that 2010, when the current government came into power, had marked the "second regime change" in Hungary, calling it a "change in economic system". A new industrial revolution has started in the country, Prime Minister Orbán insisted. Not only are there assembly plants but value-added businesses based on innovation are also making it a high-tech centre.

An attractive business environment for industry requires well-built infrastructure, Prime Minister Orbán said, adding that there is a real chance for the Hungarian economy to have one of Europe's most modern and best telecommunications infrastructures, after signing a partnership agreement with Magyar Telekom on the 21 February 2014. The partnership agreement is in accordance with Hungary’s undertaking towards the European Union to put broadband internet in all homes by 2020, something Hungary plans to achieve by 2018. This would also help create a bigger workforce pool for investing companies.

The Government's public work program is also an essential tool for providing workforce for the investing firms, and is "a gateway to the world of work", Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in Vásárosnamény on the 25 February 2014 at the opening of a new 1.8 billion forint (EUR 5.8m) data processing centre. The data centre has created 291 new jobs and has so far received 947 job applications, including from 235 registered job-seekers, the Prime Minister pointed out. This could serve as an excellent example of how people can move on from the world of public work into the world of full-time jobs.

Besides the big multinational companies, generally Hungarian owned SMEs are also a main source of economic growth and are thus considered a national priority. Attending the inauguration ceremony of a new food processing plant in Nyírgelse, northeast Hungary, on the 3 March 2014, the Prime Minister said that according to the Eximbank database, there are about 2,000 Hungarian SMEs who currently export their own goods and services. According to experts, the economy will be able to fully support itself and will achieve full competitiveness only after this number grows to 12,000, and the Government aims to increase the number of small and medium-sized enterprises that produce and offer goods and services for export to this level.

Due to these investments, both export sales volume and industry output volume grew significantly by 11.8 percent and 5.5 percent respectively by the end of 2013, compared to data for the previous year. All the positive figures contributed to a 2.7 percent GDP growth for the last quarter of 2013, compared to the same quarter from a year earlier, which is a 7-year record high. International market analysts expect GDP growth of 2-2.5 percent for this year.

(Prime Minister’s Office)