Hungarian enterprises look forward to strong year ahead

Budapest (MTI) – Several thousand billion forints of European Union support will be flowing into the Hungarian economy this year, and this will primarily benefit small and medium-sized businesses, stimulating investment sentiment, the head of Kavosz Zrt. told the daily Magyar Idők.

László Krisán, head of the company affiliated with the National Association of Entrepreneurs and Employers and the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said in the interview published on Saturday that the willingness of enterprises to invest is visible in the portfolio of loans of the state-run Szechenyi Card programme. Compared with 2015, 15 percent more loan transactions took place last year, almost 30 percent higher than the previous year’s contracted amount of credit.

This year, EU support worth at least 2,700 billion forints (EUR 8.7bn) will be paid out to companies, he said, adding that it was conceivable this would translate to requests for funds totalling 3,000 billion.