Hungarian development policy to focus on South

Development policy decisions in the near future will focus on southern Hungary, especially the cities of Pécs and Szeged, the regional developmental minister said in Szeged on Tuesday.

Addressing a forum of the Csongrád-Csanád Chamber of Commerce, Tibor Navracsics said measures in recent years had successfully given momentum to eastern and north-eastern Hungary. Policy decisions will now focus on the south, where demographic decline has coincided with slow economic development, he said.

At a Serbian-Hungarian government session in Palic, in Serbia, the governments coordinated projects of infrastructure development, he said. Among other plans, they discussed the construction of a motorway in northern Serbia which would ease the traffic on Hungary’s M5 highway and join the Hungarian road network at Mohács, he said.

While Hungary has successfully used sectoral development programmes to boost its economy, outstrip Greece and catch up with Portugal in the past years, “we have now exhausted the opportunities in centralised development policies”. A regional approach will have to return, he said.

The ministry is now working on “muster development plans” to submit to the government, he said. The regions impacted include Zalaegerszeg, the region of south-west Hungary, and the cities of Veszprém and Székesfehérvár, he added. A regional development plan is in the making for the southern regions of the Great Plain, he added.

A new construction and investment law will safeguard guarantees and high quality works, he said in response to a question.