Here is how Budapest’s agglomeration will be developed

The Budapest Agglomeration Development Council, the body to promote developments in the capital and surrounding Pest County, held its first meeting on Friday.

The body, set up by a parliamentary decision passed in July, is headed by government commissioner Zsolt Láng, and István Szabó, head of the general assembly of Pest County, as co-presidents.

Members of the council include Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony, József Tóth, mayor of district 13, László Csőzik, mayor of Érd, István Török, a delegate by the Pest County General Assembly, as well as state secretaries and deputy state secretaries of several ministries.

The new council will work as a consultative body to support governmental decision making concerning the development of the greater Budapest area.

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Hungarian government to continue business support in Vojvodina

The Hungarian government is firmly committed to pursuing its economic development programme aimed at helping ethnic Hungarian businesses in Serbia’s Vojvodina province, though less funding will be available due to current financial pressures on the budget, a state secretary at the foreign ministry said in Subotica (Szabadka) on Thursday.

Levente Magyar, speaking at the opening ceremony of one of two new hotels built with the programme’s financing, said that “for the time being funds will not be coming in the magnitude and frequency as before”. Referring to the new hotels in Subotica and Novi Sad (Újvidék), Magyar said Hungarian businesses, including those in tourism, had benefited from the scheme and assumed dominant positions in their respective markets.

Magyar said the Hungarian government’s programme was made possible by excellent bilateral ties with Serbia, and it had now helped tens of thousands of ethnic Hungarian families. Had it not been for the scheme, many of those people might have sought prosperity outside their homeland, he added. The programme focuses on agriculture, tourism, as well as assistance to small and medium-sized businesses, helping young people stay in Vojvodina and reverse the tendency to emigrate, the state secretary added.