Hungary may again become one of the regions frontrunners in 2013-2014, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said at a conference of honorary consuls in Budapest on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Orbán said economic growth this year could surpass "conservative forecasts" of 0.5 percent and the Government has drawn up the 2014 budget with expectations of 2 percent growth. The extensive economic restructuring achieved over recent years should facilitate continued growth after 2014, he added. With growth projected to exceed that of other countries in the region, Hungary may regain the leading position it held in the region before 2002, he said.

Hungary's natural competitors in the next 15-20 years will not be European countries but rather more competitive, emerging markets from Brazil to China, the Prime Minister continued, adding that more balanced export and trade relations are needed, which is why Hungary is opening towards the east. Hungary's Fundamental Law creates a balance between the interests of the individual and the community; the Hungarian government is building a work-based economy instead of a welfare state, he said, adding that there were four million taxpayers in the country now as opposed to only 1.8 million in 2010.

On the subject of relations with the European Union, the Prime Minister said Hungary was not a eurosceptic country and should not be regarded as one, but instead represented a euro-realist approach, and as such Hungary does not plan to join the states which believe that "everything is going well on the continent," as Europe is still unable to find answers to mounting challenges, he said. Hungary will not turn a blind eye to unfavourable trends, but is fully committed to European values and the European community, he insisted. In response to a participant's question, Mr. Orbán said that Hungary would keep the banking tax, which is above the average European level.

Orbán said that the higher-than-average levy was part of the new Hungarian system of sharing public burdens, adding that the Government's goal was to raise the proportion of Hungarian-owned financial institutions in the country, especially important being the reinforcement of OTP Bank, an independent bank that is the country's largest commercial lender, and integrating savings cooperatives.

He added that integration could triple the market share of savings cooperatives to 15 percent. He told a participant from New Zealand that 350,000 people had left Hungary over the past ten years seeking temporary work abroad, which, in proportion to the population, is a relatively low figure in central Europe. He said for instance that more people had migrated from Austria last year than from Hungary.

(Prime Minister’s Office)