Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen.
Thank you for coming. I would also like to thank the President for the opportunity to work together – not only over the past few weeks, but also this morning. Indeed, the first substantial, visible and significant fruit of the cooperation between the Government and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry has now ripened. We invited you to join us this morning so that we can tell you about this. First of all, we would like to thank the President and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry for the agreement we signed earlier, which sets out the path for cooperation between the Chamber and the Government. You will hear more details about this in a background discussion later today, and the President may also share a few thoughts with us on the subject. We are satisfied with this agreement – not only with the document itself, but also with what has taken place since then in the same spirit. We feel that if we are able to implement it fully, the performance of the Hungarian economy will continue to improve – alongside the profitability and efficiency of Hungarian businesses.
I wanted to begin with this because nowadays one hears little else about the European economy but bad news. If you open any respected international media outlet – electronic or print – and turn to the business section, you will read that Europe’s competitiveness is deteriorating, and that there is no plan for improving it. President Draghi not only submitted a report outlining an apocalyptic vision of what awaits us if we fail to act immediately, but since then eight or nine months have passed, and last week he gave a speech in which he said that the situation is now even worse than when he wrote his study. Energy prices are sky-high, as everyone can see. Then there is the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia, along with the related economic debates over how much money should be given, where it should come from, and whether that money might not be better spent within the European economy itself. So when one talks about the European economy today, one essentially sees defensive, shrinking, hedgehog-like economic policy. And that is not good! So this situation is not good for a country that not only wants to protect what it has already achieved, but also wishes to continue developing. And our agreement with the Chamber of Commerce is about a path of development – about how, instead of defence and retreat, we can move onto an upward trajectory: to grow, strengthen, prosper and advance. The Government has an economic strategy which summarises, in four key points, what needs to be done in the short and medium term.
Our first measure – for which we hold high hopes, not only from a social but also from an economic point of view – is the 3 per cent home creation loan scheme. We believe its macroeconomic impact and its contribution to economic growth will be significant. The second pillar of this government strategy is to provide a similar type of loan to businesses – and this is what I shall speak about now. The third pillar is tax reduction – because if we want development and growth, taxes must be lowered. We have already spoken at length about reducing taxes on families, and perhaps you have already reported on those, but there will also be reductions in business taxes. We are still in talks with the Chamber about these and it would be premature to go into detail, but we would like to implement a tangible tax reduction for Hungarian businesses – primarily related to employment.
But that is not why we are here today. I have mentioned these four points only because they form the four pillars on which the Government’s future plans rest; but today we are discussing the second pillar. In other words, we are talking about how we can provide Hungarian businesses with access to loans that are easy to obtain, offer substantial assistance, are free of unnecessary bureaucracy, are freely usable, have fixed interest rates – and therefore without unpredictable risks for businesses – and are distributed through a well-established mechanism. These were the principles we agreed upon with the President when we developed the fixed 3 per cent interest loan that I am now announcing. From 6 October – that is, from next week – a new fixed-rate loan with 3 per cent interest will be available in Hungary for small and medium-sized enterprises, with an upper limit of 150 million forints. These loans will be provided to businesses through the Széchenyi Card Scheme.
I wish them every success! President, thank you very much for your cooperation.