11 March 2014, Gyöngyös
Good Afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen!
A special welcome to the directors of Procter & Gamble. Mr. Nemeth [Mr. Julio Nemeth, Senior Vice President for Product Supply] ended on a personal note, but I would like to get past that right at the beginning. I would like to express my personal gratitude to Procter & Gamble, together with my wife, because if we would have had to begin our children's lives using linen diapers, then I perhaps wouldn't be standing here today, but would still be at home helping my wife.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Everyone who raises children, and especially people like me, who have lots of children, know full well how helpful this invention is, which we have Procter & Gamble to thank for.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I would like to say thank you to those to whom it is due and who, in the huge international headquarters of this company, made the decision that this factory would be constructed here. Clearly, we cannot list all of them personally, but I would like to ask the CEO of P&G Central Europe [Mr. Marek Kapuscinski] to pass on my good wishes to all of the company's global directors who were involved in this decision. Hungary is grateful for their decision.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In 1991, Procter & Gamble was one of the first large international investors to establish a presence in Hungary. The first plant began with sixty workers, but the number of people the company employs has since then risen to over a thousand. If there is something that someone can wish for their homeland, if they love their homeland, that is, it is nothing other than that many more corporations of this kind should establish a presence in Hungary. Companies that are capable of increasing the number of people they employ fifteen-fold. And then, dear people of Gyöngyös, we haven't even mentioned the suppliers, because Procter & Gamble maintains a business relationship with 400 Hungarian suppliers, and this means further job opportunities. As we have heard, Procter & Gamble began as a family business, and through a lot of hard work and, as testified to by the presentation we have just seen, innovative ideas, it rose to become one of the largest companies in the world. This is also an important lesson to countries and nations. This is a company that, if I understood the presentation correctly, has always been one step ahead of its time. I have read that it was the first to establish a research laboratory, the first to employ targeted market research, and I even found a report according to which within 5 months of the launch of the first commercially available television, one of its products was already being advertised on television during the first ever screening of a baseball match. Speed, innovation and grabbing new opportunities. They were capable of adapting and of assessing opportunities. They were always there where the future was being built. This is the greatest lesson that a country can receive from an international company.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
CEO Kapuscinski mentioned it, and he did so with modesty, which is understandable, so it is my duty to expand and present to you in its entirety that thought regarding Procter & Gamble's corporate responsibility.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We are very grateful for the fact that you are, as they say in English, good corporate citizens. When a corporation doesn't simply provide jobs, manufacture its products and make its profits, but also feels that it has a responsibility towards the community in which it operates. I would like to mention quickly that following the red sludge disaster in 2010, this company made a donation worth 110 thousand dollars to the Hungarian families affected by the catastrophe. You will I am sure remember that the red sludge put the inhabitants of three settlements in serious difficulties and they needed all the help they could get. We are grateful for the fact that you were among the very first to come to their aid, Mr. Kapuscinski, and who gave a helping hand to those Hungarians who were in serious trouble. I must also mention the fact that during the 2013 Danube flood, the company provided 175 thousand dollars to facilitate flood protection operations and to help those families who were forced to temporarily evacuate their homes. Thank you in the name of every citizen of Hungary.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Perhaps this is the right timer, although my job today isn't to hold a university lecture, but nevertheless perhaps this is the right time for the Hungarians to stop and take a moment to think about their opinions regarding foreign investments. Because the Hungarians have every reason to recall the fact that they have bad experiences, because we know of many international investors who didn't come here to live together with us as good corporate citizens, but to instead devastate the market, to ruin us, and to take away our business opportunities. In this regard, the criticism is well-founded. But I would recommend, Ladies and Gentlemen, and especially now that we are preparing to hold a general election, that we never allow ourselves to fall over to the other side of the fence, because without the Hungarian investments of large, international companies, the Hungarian economy will be unable to flourish. Without the Hungarian investments of large, international companies, there will be no jobs. Without the Hungarian investments of large, international companies, there will be no economic growth from which we can maintain schools, operate the healthcare system and raise children in our nursery schools and kindergartens. And accordingly I would ask everyone now, today, to make a distinction between non-desirable and very much desirable large international companies that should in fact be invited to come to Hungary. We will not allow our sometimes bad experiences to push us over to the other side of the fence. Let us not allow those voices that are raised without discrimination against foreigners and foreign investors to gain ground in Hungary. Those who do so are damaging their country, are damaging the city and are damaging Gyöngyös. They are not friends, but enemies of Gyöngyös. Let us be rational! We must understand that if we want to win a competition we must first enter it. If we don't buy a lottery ticket, we will never win. And it is through large international companies that we can link to the global distribution of production and labour. And accordingly it is with respect that I would ask the people of Gyöngyös, the leaders of the City of Gyöngyös, and in general all political forces in Hungary to continue to support large international companies such as Procter & Gamble so that we can also enjoy joint success.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
And now please allow me to mention that the system for funding the economy in Hungary will change in the future. We will be putting the majority of our available economic funding towards economic development. We will not simply be making the system of funding simpler, and supporting enterprises in Hungary will not just become less bureaucratic, but we will be injecting 60 percent of our available development resources, including European Union funding, directly into the economy. The required loan, financing and monetary frameworks are already in place.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
If we do this, then the Hungarian economy will be standing firmly on its own two feet.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
And now please allow me to inform you of the fact that I have held talks with both CEO Kapuscinski and Vice President Nemeth, and during our conversation the question cropped up: why did they decide to bring this investment here, to Hungary? They mentioned three factors. Four, but I will be modest and refrain from mentioning that. I haven't come here today to praise myself and the government, and from that you will have already guessed the fourth one. The first factor they mentioned is Hungary's central location within the Central European region. I would say to Mr. Kapuscinski that we, who went to school in Hungary, know exactly what disadvantages this also meant in Hungarian history. Every war path went straight through Hungary; if someone wanted to take something away from somebody else, they had to march through Hungary first. Luckily, the modern era of the global economy is a peaceful one. Today, it is very difficult to imagine a company operating in Central Europe or Europe without having some relationship with this region, and with the centre of this region. And so this is a lucky circumstance that we must make full use of. Hungary is in an excellent geographical position with regard to the modern global economy.
It is also important to note that, although there was much heated debate on the issue, the new Labour Code has finally made it possible for an efficient and flexible labour management system to be established in Hungary. We are not completely satisfied with this legislation. There are still many who feel that they would like to work more, and the regulations represent more of a hurdle than a helping hand to them, but compared to the earlier state of affairs the current Labour Code is one of the most flexible and efficient sets of regulations in Europe.
And there is a third factor, which Mr. Németh also mentioned. I cannot inaugurate a large international investment project in Hungary, Ladies and Gentlemen, without the investors mentioning as the most important reason for their decision the highly-trained Hungarian workforce. And so I would like the people of Gyöngyös to acknowledge and understand with respect to this investment project, that this new plant in Gyöngyös was made possible because the Hungarian workforce somewhere else, in Csömör on this occasion, has performed an outstanding job. Because the Hungarian workers in Csömör did such a good job that the capital investors felt that it would be worth opening their new factory here in Hungary. We could call this a form of national cooperation. A workforce who proves their worth in one part of the country serves as an argument in favour of realising an investment project in another part of the country. And so, although we may be in Gyöngyös today, the workers of Csömör also deserve acknowledgement.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
85 million dollars, or 20 billion forints. We are not talking about a small sum of money. This is the cost of this development project. It is directly creating 150 new jobs, meaning it creates a living for 150 Hungarian families.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Investment projects such as this are realised if the people of Hungary want to work. It is perhaps not the concern of our foreign guests here today, but we Hungarians know precisely that we have behind us fifteen to twenty years during which tens of thousands, or perhaps hundreds of thousands, of adult Hungarians lived their lives without work. Children have grown up in Hungary without ever seeing their parents get up in the morning and get ready to go to work.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is in all of our interests that there be no families like this in Hungary. It is in the interests of all of us that every Hungarian family be given the opportunity to make a living from their own work. The world owes every single person, including everyone in Hungary, the chance to maintain themselves and their families through work. And for this reason I would like to ask you, when days after our current gathering you go and vote at the next parliamentary elections and decide on the future of Hungary, the future of all of us, to keep this in mind and take this into consideration and give sufficient weight to the issue of employment and job creation. Let us not once again give rise to a situation in Hungary in which hundreds of thousand of people want and are able to live off benefits instead of from work, rather than supporting an economic policy that is working at full steam to provide people with work opportunities.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I recommend that when you go out and vote you primarily put on the balance this job creation capability, the support provided to Hungarian small and medium-sized enterprises and the capability of working together with large, international companies such as Procter & Gamble. If this is the choice you make, if you vote for work, if we vote jointly for a work-based economy, then Hungary has a bright future ahead of it and we will be meeting Mr. Németh again at the opening of more and more factories, and our hearts will all be warmed by his example, that, although from Argentina, it is also possible to rise to the top of the world as a Hungarian. His personal presence is also a great source of encouragement to all of us. Congratulations to the City, congratulations to the people of Gyöngyös and congratulations to Procter & Gamble. I wish you all the best of luck in the future!
Thank you for your attention.
(Prime Minister’s Office)
