Every Production Investment Project is Dear to Hungary

March 25, 2014 3:35 PM

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's Speech at the Inauguration of the New Lego Factory

Good Afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen!

"Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen! Your Excellencies! Our guests from all around the world from Denmark and from other cities of Europe! I would not apologize, but because we are in Hungary, I have to speak our Hungarian language."

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Greetings to all of you! It is with special respect and appreciation that I greet Denmark's Ambassador to Hungary. Denmark is our friend and has always supported us, and the realisation of this latest investment project also required our traditionally good Danish-Hungarian friendship, which is built on mutual respect. When I was thinking about what I should say when I stand here in front of you today, about what is really the first thing that comes to people's minds when they think of Lego, and not just an official statement, then the first thing I though of was that Lego bricks often hurt the soles of peoples feet when they go and check on the children at night. This is perhaps the only downside to Lego toys that I can tell you about here today. Everything else is all positive, Ladies and Gentlemen! Let me at any event repeat for you what the directors of the Lego factory have already said, that this production plant, a huge manufacturing complex, has been constructed here with unprecedented speed. World records for production plant construction are not registered I think, but if they were then I think we could safely enter it as one of the world's most modern and most rapidly constructed plants. I have spoken with Mr. Mikkelsen [Managing Director of Lego Manufacturing Ltd. Jesper Hassellund Mikkelsen] and with Mr. Knudstrop [President and CEO of Lego Group Jorgen Vig Knudstrop] prior to today's inauguration ceremony and I told them that this is no accident. Hungary entered the European economic competition with a huge disadvantage, because we had 45 years during which private property and the private economy were regarded as undesirable and in fact persecuted, and this prevented us from accumulating the intellectual and financial capital that are prerequisites for success in the modern economy. And so we need capital, and we must provide those who have capital with advantages, some kind of competitive advantage, to make is worth their while to establish factories here. Hungary's primary advantage is speed. If someone comes up with an idea somewhere in the world and they want to realise it quickly, then they can count on Hungary, because speed is currently Hungary's greatest weapon and advantage.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are in Nyíregyháza. I must also mention the fact that we have freed this city of some 19 billion forints of debt, we have assumed this debt and removed it from the shoulders of the people who live here, and a total of some 170 billion forints in investment and funding has been injected into the city and the surrounding area so that the region can begin to develop. My wish for the people of Nyíregyháza is that they never experience a worst year than this one.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Naturally, every production investment project is dear to Hungary, meaning dear to our hearts, because Hungarian people will be working in these factories and they help Hungary to achieve its goal of becoming a production centre. But there are a few things that make Lego especially dear to our hearts, and I would like to say a few things about this now. The first reason that Lego is especially dear to us is that is represents not only a business asset, although it undoubtedly represents a huge business asset, but also a cultural asset. It doesn't simply care for our children, but it cares for them in a very special way. It provides them with a form of culture built on creation, innovation and an imaginative life. And what makes the lives of adults brighter than creation, innovation and an imaginative life? What else is it worth living for?

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is my firm belief that children who play a lot, who play well and who play with good games, can become creative and constructive individuals and have a greater chance of being satisfied and successful people than those people who are not lucky enough to have a childhood of this kind.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Lego teaches our children, and this is the other reason we are especially fond of Lego, not to make do with what they have, but to create something else. To make themselves a new game, to use their imaginations and to also not accept the world the way it is, so when they grow up they will be strong, talented and have the strength not to accept what they see around them and what they are not satisfied with, but to try and change it, improve it and alter it. This is what Lego teaches our children, and for this we are grateful to the company's founders who invented this game. This is a beautiful achievement, Ladies and Gentlemen! It is a similarly beautiful achievement, and it is hard to say something like this here, or it is rarely said about a factory that it is beautiful, and I am not talking about aesthetics now, although that is a good thing too, but it is a similarly beautiful achievement that Lego remains to this day a family business. In the modern world we all feel how things are becoming increasingly less personal all around us, and the fact that a company that has achieved such amazing international success as a family business is a wonderful thing. I am glad of this and in fact I thanked President Knudstrop in the name of Hungary during the course of our talks that preceded this ceremony, for allowing us to be part of a wonderful international success and a wonderful international success story like Lego. I have looked at the figures and they are quite staggering. 400 billion Lego bricks have been manufactured since 1949. If we put the number of Lego elements produced each year end to end they would reach all the way around the world five times. In view of such amazing figures it is especially noteworthy that 20 percent of Lego Group's worldwide production capacity and all of the company's Duplo products are manufactured here in Nyíregyháza. There is another instructive point of interest here that I would like to draw to your attention. If you have opened a newspaper, browsed the Internet or switched on your television during the course of the past six-seven years, then the most important pieces of news have always included the crisis, the European or Western or global financial and economic crisis. I have taken a look at Lego's figures for the years since the emergence of the crisis. It is an edifying story, Ladies and Gentlemen! The company's figures show that Lego has been capable of increasing its turnover by 15% in every single year since 2007. I don't think there is another factory or company in Europe that can state that it has been capable of increasing its income by 15% every year even in the worst years of economic crisis.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The favourable effects of this prosperity can also be felt at the factory here in Nyíregyháza. This underlines for us all how important it is that companies are lead by talented people, because it is clear that behind the increase in production and profit generated during a time of crisis there lies management knowledge and ability. Without sufficient management capability, an extra 250 people would not have a job and an opportunity to make a living in this factory today. This is a level of knowledge that we should appreciate, and we should express our appreciation to the management of the factory.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I could of course also speak - but I won't - about the fact that it also came to mind when I was preparing for today that the logic of Lego toys and government are very similar, and especially in times of crisis when an economy begins to fall apart like a barrel that has lost its hoops and the staves fall apart. A national economy in crisis is very similar. It has all of its components, but they don't come together to form a working whole. At such times, government means simply putting these elements together somehow, like a Lego toy, so that the eventual result is what you, and in this case not just one person, but 10 million Hungarian people, envisage.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It would seem that lots of people in Hungary played with Lego when they were children, because this attempt at reconstructing the Hungarian economy has been successful. I would like to inform you, Ladies and Gentlemen, that the Hungarian Government has concluded a strategic agreement, a partnership agreement, with Lego. There are currently 43 international companies in Hungary with whom we have concluded agreements of this kind. It is important, because most people are employed by Hungarian small and medium-sized enterprises and so the performance of Hungarian small and medium-sized enterprises is of great importance, but every clear-minded person knows that if we want to link to the global economy as a suitable level then we need large international companies who don't regard Hungary as simply a factory site, but who have joint goals together with us and who in this sense are our strategic partners. Lego is one of the 43 huge companies of this nature operating here in Hungary, and thank you for cooperating with us to ensure that this agreement was successfully concluded.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Another thing that came to mind when I was preparing to come here today, Ladies and Gentlemen, is that one of our most often used arguments in favour of foreign investments in Hungary are in fact the workers; the diligence and capabilities of the workforce. If we ask any foreign investor why they have chosen Hungary as the site for their new investment, then in addition to mentioning our geographical location the decisive factor they bring up is always our workforce, the Hungarian workers. Hungarian workers who are capable of working in a dedicated, hard-working and precise manner. For us, who were pushed back in the global economy for 45 years, it is important that we keep repeating the fact that Hungarian workers have every reason to be proud of their own performance. The only reason these factories are here in Hungary, from Audi to Lego, is because their owners like employing Hungarian workers. Their training, their work and their efficiency is our most important advantage within the global economy today. They themselves are the decisive factor in the results of the Hungarian economy. Thank you to those Lego employees who were already working for the company prior to the construction of this new plant, and whose performance here has enabled the company's owners to decide to establish their new production plant right here and create 250 new jobs. It is the first Lego employees here in Nyíregyháza who have worked hard for these jobs. They deserve that we remember their performance with respect and appreciation at such times.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In closing, I would like to tell you that Nyíregyháza is also standing on the threshold of important new opportunities. Our Danish guests are probably not aware of this, but people in Hungary have the general idea that the western part of the country is more developed than the northern and eastern areas of the country, and this has been the case for a long time and there is much truth in this statement. All political leaders are preoccupied with the question of how this state of affairs may be changed, partly to enable life to be more fair and so nobody feels that they are second rate citizens in their own homeland, and partly to enable opportunities to rise to the surface, because nobody can seriously think that people who live in the eastern part of the country are less talented than people in the western regions. We have no reason to assume that. Everyone, every government, searches for the solution to this issue. Our solution, Ladies and Gentlemen, is something that Lego is embodying here today. We believe that this part of the country has some large cities from Miskolc to Nyíregyháza that have a serious capacity and are home to a valuable workforce, and which can become centres of development. We must reinforce these cities, because it is from here, through the jobs created here, through the national income generated here and through the required services, that a good standard of living, jobs, dependency and a foreseeable future will begin to radiate.

My wish for the people of Nyíregyháza is that the City is successful. The eastern part of the country cannot be successful without Nyíregyháza being successful. And in fact I not only wish that you will be successful, but that you be so successful that you can pull this disadvantaged area of the country up with you. I wish the Mayor and every citizen of Nyíregyháza much success! Thank you once again to the directors of the Lego factory for having chosen Hungary! Congratulations to those who have enabled the completion of this investment project in such an extraordinarily short time! Thank you to Denmark, through His Excellency the Ambassador, for your friendship! I wish the people who work here much success, strength and good health!

Thank you for your attention.