4 Hungarian regions among the poorest in the EU

The European Commission has published their latest statistics on the development of EU regions, based on the 2015 data of Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. 276 regions were evaluated and ranked based on regional GDP per capita. Among the 19 regions where GDP per capita is below 50pc of the EU average, four are in Hungary, index.hu writes.

According to the statistics, the most developed region is Inner London, producing 580pc of the EU average. At second and third place, quite far behind, is Luxembourg with 264pc and Hamburg with 206pc. The top 20 regions are located mostly in the founding countries. Among the member states in Eastern Europe, Slovakia and the Czech Republic are also represented with one region each.

The poorest region in the EU is Severozapaden in Bulgaria with only 29pc of the EU average of GDP per capita. Among the 20 poorest regions, which produce below 50pc of the EU average, are five Bulgarian regions, four regions each in Hungary and Poland, three in Romania, two in Greece, and Mayotte, an oversees region of France.

Four Hungarian regions are listed among the 20 regions with the lowest GDP per capita: the Northern Great Plain (43pc), Northern Hungary (45pc), Southern Transdanubia (45pc), and the Southern Great Plain (48pc).

At the same time, three of the four regions have improved since the 2015 statistics were published. Two years ago, Northern Hungary was at 40pc, the Northern Great Plain at 42pc, the Southern Great Plain at 45pc.

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The most developed region of Hungary is Central Hungary, where Budapest is located. This region produces 105pc of the EU average. However, the best regions of the neighbouring countries exceed Central Hungary greatly: the Bratislava region in Slovakia is at 188pc, the Mazovia Province of Poland is at 109pc, the Prague region in the Czech Republic is at 178pc, and somewhat surprisingly, the Bucharest-Ilfov region of Romania is at the same level of development as Western Austria with 136pc.

Ce: bm

Source: index.hu