10 news you missed because of the refugee crisis

Although the refugee influx never seen in Hungary quite rightly engages the attention of the media and the readers, the fact remains that life goes on in the economy and things happen you should know about. That is why index.hu collected 10 economic news from last week which you probably did not notice.

1. Can we say goodbye to Tesco?

“Tesco value” can disappear from the Hungarian slang, because it goes hard with the British retail chains not only in Hungary, but virtually everywhere, so it plans retreating in many places. Moreover, according to Slovak press reports, it can call for international tenders within one month, through which it would sell its Czech, Slovak, Polish and Hungarian stores. Of course, the company has not confirmed the news, but it is not impossible that instead of Tesco, you can buy in the American Walmart, the French Groupe Casino or the Japanese Aeon soon. Read more HERE.

2. Hungarian Post gets competitor

City Mail company got permission to carry out postal services, which can compete with the Hungarian Post in the delivery of the letters not more than 50 grams. The Dubai-based company’s Hungarian subsidiary has been registered in 2011, but it could not enter the market so far because it did not received permission from the National Media and Communications Authority. The 2013 post law liberalized the market, so in theory private companies can also deliver letters in addition to the public post. Now they can really deliver.

3. Rogan’s neighbor and Szijjarto’s buddy can communicate from HUF 25 billion public money

According to index.hu, you could already read about it, but has also been published in the Public Procurement Bulletin which companies won the HUF 25 billion tender of the National Communications Office. Among the winners are:

HG 360 Advertising Agency, the company of Csaba Csetenyi, who is the neighbor of Antal Rogan and won 9 tobacco shop concessions and HUF 1.5 billion public procurement, and most recently he received HUF 300 million to distribute the anti-immigrant posters (since then, the 5^th district municipality wrote index.hu that they had no relation with HG 360).

The Trinity International Communications Kft. owned by Tibor Kuna, who is the buddy of Peter Szijjarto and won so many public procurements with his company called Young and Partners that he chose to apply with Trinity.

The Mindshare Media Agency signed a contract worth  HUF 244 million with BKK last year, but it has already received a plenty of state orders even under the left-wing governments.

4. There is something in which not the whole EU, but Uganda and Malawi are also better than us. What is that?

The extent of how transparent and understandable that on what the government spends the taxpayers’ money. The international organization called Budget Partnership examined the budget transparency in 102 countries and Hungary could finish 45^th in 2014 which is not so honoring. This means that the whole EU is ahead of us, 5 African countries and half-dictatorships like Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Colombia and Papua New Guinea. What is the problem? Among other things:

it is not clear how much spends the budget and on what kind of functions (eg. education, healthcare),
most of the explanations just tells us that how many percent some spending increases, but it does not say why
the government does anything it wants with the reserves, residual funds and transferred money: it impairs the budgetary powers of the parliament.

Of course, the Ministry of National Economy immediately protested against the survey and they think it assessed very subjective points of view.

5. Maternity leave is for two years

According to index.hu, it is not fresh news but perhaps many people have not heard about it that those who had been entitled to it for one year, can get the maternity leave for two years, and the family will not lose the two-month care, if the father will stay home when the child is one-year-old. There are two important changes from July:

The mothers, who return to the labor-market in part-time and then they have another child, are better off, because they get childcare benefits after the amount set out before the first birth.

Those who had been previously insured, but their legal relationship interrupted some reason for more than 30 days, get higher maternity leave.

6. There will be people who will lose millions on housing subsidies

Many people can be excluded from the circle of the entitled of Family Housing Benefits (CSOK).

One of the conditions of the benefit is that the claimant or his/her spouse is insured for at least 180 continuously. You have to ask the official confirmation of it from the local government agency, and then you have to attach it next to the bank loan application. Those who do not have this paper, they will not receive public money. Those who work or are on maternity leave, they are entitled to only healthcare automatically. Of them, insured persons are who have an employment relationship.

7. Will the oligarchs really not be happy about the land privatization of the government?

The government wants to sell the bulk of arable land owned by the state, about 380 thousand hectares this year. Secretary of State for Land Affairs Marton Bitay says it will be good for local farmers, there will be no tricks as they were in the land lease tenders and big landowner oligarchs will not be happy. Just like the EU, since foreigners can still not buy Hungarian land, but Bitay is eager that Brussels harass this.

8. Tourism roamed this summer

According to the recent data of the Central Statistics Office (KSH), the turnover of accommodations in July rose by 9.5% compared to the level in July last year. Within this, the number of foreign visitors grew by 12% and the domestic ones by 7.5%. In the first half of this year, foreigners spent here 7 million 233 thousand and domestic residents spent 7 million 162 thousand guest nights, the first one means a 6.6%, the second one means a 6.9% increase, so domestic tourism is growing somewhat more vividly than foreign, index.hu said.

9. Food became surprisingly cheap

Based on the data of FAO, food prices on the world market fell to 7-year lows this summer. Food price index, which watches it, measures the price of the five most important foods (grains, sugar, vegetable oils, meat, and dairy product), among the five only meat prices did not reduce.

10. It can be so bad for a Hungarian abroad as for a refugee here

“We spent the whole night in heavy rain, without shelter and in the cold. All our belongings soaked. We felt like the homeless. Every moment was terrible. It was that someone was going for us in the morning, but they came only in the afternoon.”

It was written by not a Syrian refugee, but a Hungarian student who was outsourced by a Hungarian company called CEUR to clean at an England festival. The students complained about the pay, benefits and the way the company treated them, but according to the Executive, they had no reason to the complaint.

based on the article of index.hu
translated by BA