Orbán: Preparations must be made for a global pandemic, everyone must step out of their comfort zone

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has pledged government support for economic players that suffer losses due to the new coronavirus.

Speaking at an event on Tuesday organised by the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MKIK), Orbán referred to a new action plan in the making to protect the economy, and asked the chamber to collect and forward by the end of April feedback from economic players concerning which sectors are expected to experience difficulties.

Orbán said that rather than introducing blanket macroeconomic measures, specific sectors such as tourism would need targeted help, and the government is prepared to create the appropriate financial conditions. The budgets for this year and next will be redrafted to take into consideration additional billions of euros needed for economic stimulation measures, he added.

• Three more people infected by new virus in Hungary!

Solutions must be geared towards ensuring that the economic downturn does not match that of the 2008-2009 economic crisis, he said, adding that

Hungary must maintain its growth advantage over the EU.

Orbán said preparations must be made for a global pandemic, adding that “everyone must step out of their comfort zone”.

He said “psychological uncertainty” due to the lack of a vaccine for the new coronavirus was here to stay, and this would engender a “defensive stance” influencing economic activity.

China, he added, took 5-6 months to slow the virus down, which for Europe would mean the epidemic would last until the peak of the tourist season in July. So a major economic downturn was likely for those countries that depend on tourism to a greater degree than others, he added.

The prime minister warned that preparations must be made for “brutal changes”.

“If all we do in the next ten years is as much as we did in the past ten, then we will be ruined,” he said.

On top of that, Brexit carries with it industrial policy considerations, Orban said. The associated fallout contained elements that may badly affect Hungary’s competitive advantage, he added.

Among the achievements, Orbán noted consistent deficits of below 3 percent of GDP since 2012, while public debt has been pushed down to 66 percent of GDP. He said this would soon fall below 60 percent.

The prime minister said the government aimed to eliminate foreign currency debt and finance Hungarian government debt in forints.

Orbán praised the Hungarian central bank’s monetary policy, saying that in 2019 spending on servicing debt had declined by 900 billion forints compared with 2012.

The prime minister insisted that the government’s success over the past ten years rested on a number of factors, including economic policymakers who were brave enough to take risky measures, including repaying IMF debt, thereby regaining the confidence of economic players and foreign investors.

Source: MTI