Hungary Competitiveness Weak And Slipping, Says Professor

(MTI) – Hungary’s competitiveness is weak and deteriorating, and the ailments can only be remedied in the long run, economics professor Attila Chikan, said at a forum in Debrecen, eastern Hungary, on Friday.

The reasons are deeply-rooted and cannot be linked to one government only, Chikan, head of the Research Institute for Competitiveness at the Budapest Corvinus University, said.

Chikan, a former economy minister, said Hungary slipped from 29th place in 2001 to 63rd on a list of 148 countries ranked for competitiveness. He said Hungary has been gradually lagging behind at a steady pace.

He said reasons include a long-standing inheritance of corruption, an exaggerated faith in the state, and tax evasion, as well as the global environment and economy policy. He said that Hungarian intellectuals and elites had not been efficient since the democratic transition of the 1990s.

“Economic policy will essentially not change in the coming years,” he said, adding that the three key elements to a solution were employment, productivity and training.

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Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters