Hungary 19th in EU competitiveness ranking – NBH – UPDATE

Hungary has placed 19th in the National Bank of Hungary’s ranking of European Union countries by their level of competitiveness, Gergely Baksay, the central bank’s director, told a press conference on Tuesday, presenting the NBH’s latest competitiveness report.

Hungary‘s score of 47.4 points on a scale of 0-100 is slightly higher than the average score of the other three Visegrad Group countries (46.7) but falls short of the EU average by 4.5 points, Baksay said.

The ranking is headed by the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands, with Romania, Greece and Bulgaria bringing up the rear.

Slovenia and Estonia are the highest ranked central and eastern European countries with 53.1 points and 52.5 points, respectively. All other CEE countries scored lower than the EU average. Sweden achieved the highest score with 67.3 points.

The ranking is based on an evaluation of 154 indicators in 12 areas using data from 2019, meaning that the effects of the novel coronavirus pandemic had not been factored in.

According to the report, Hungary has made significant progress in several areas but still has room for improvement in areas such as education, health care and the productivity of small and medium-sized businesses.

UPDATE

To catch up with the leading countries, Baksay said, Hungary has to maintain a growth rate that is 2-3 percentage points above their average growth rate. Hungary’s economic growth rate in recent years outstripped those of the highest-ranked countries by more than 3 percent, he said.

Areas Hungary must tackle in order to improve its competitiveness include the high operating costs in the banking sector,