Roads planned to be revamped in Hungary revealed

Hungary’s public road maintenance company Magyar Közút plans to revamp over 1,000km of roads by the end of this year, the company said on Friday.

A comprehensive revamp of some 523km of mostly secondary roads has already been completed and work is under way on another 492km, the statement said. The projects involve not only replacing the road surface but also strengthening or rebuilding the foundation layers where necessary, tidying up roadside ditches and water furrows and renewing road markers and signs where necessary.

The company has drawn central budget and European Union funding for the work.

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Hungary’s industrial output grew

Industrial output adjusted for the number of working days grew by an annual 4.8 percent in June after an increase of 3.4 percent in May, according to a second reading of data the Central Statistical Office (KSH) published on Friday. Unadjusted output was up 1.5 percent, slowing from 9.4 percent in May. Output of the automotive industry in June, Hungary’s biggest manufacturing sector, grew by 2.9 percent year on year.

The detailed data show output of the computer, electronics and optical equipment segment increased by an annual 4.9 percent. Output of the food, drinks and tobacco segment increased by 9.3 percent. Month on month, output in June rose by 0.6 percent based on seasonally and working day-adjusted data. In January-June, industrial output grew by an annual 5.1 percent. Industrial sales rose by an annual 4.4 percent in June. Export sales increased by 2.7 percent and domestic sales by 7.1 percent. In absolute terms, industrial sales were worth 5,827 billion forints, with exports accounting for 61 percent of the total.

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After the release of data, the ministry of technology and industry noted that industrial output grew by 5.1 percent in the first half of the year. Compared with output in the same period of 2020, there was a 6.3 percent improvement, meaning that a new record level was reached on the back of sustained growth in the index since coronavirus came to the fore.

The performance, the ministry said in a statement, was largely thanks to government measures aimed at protecting the economy based on encouraging job-creating investments which have led to the establishment of new production capacities in Hungary. Electrical equipment manufacture and the food industry fuelled the growth, while vehicle manufacturing — in the doledrums throughout Europe — has seen nascent growth in Hungary, the statement added.

The data are robust in international comparison, exceeding the EU average and countries of the region, the ministry said. Output “has not yet seen a decline similar to that which emerged due to the coronavirus, despite the war and supply disruptions,” Zsolt Kutnyánszky, the state secretary for industry and the labour market, wrote. Hungary is turning into a key base for battery manufacturing, and is investing in 5G, artificial intelligence and the hydrogen economy, he added. He warned, however, that “various global challenges and uncertainties” warranted caution as regards the future outlook.

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Source: MTI