Hungary-Portugal venture capital fund set to launch

The East West European Venture Capital Fund, targeting Hungary and Portugal for investments, will launch this Wednesday, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó said on Monday.

Szijjártó said that the 20 million euro fund will help innovative Hungarian SMEs to “a broad range of international development resources”, thus increasing their competitiveness in the next eight years.

He added that 40 percent of the capital generated by the fund should be invested in Hungary. 

Companies investing in the fund include OTP Bank, oil and gas company MOL and Eximbank, the minister said.

The fund will be managed by Alpac Capital, which is registered by the Portuguese securities commission and has offices in Budapest and Lisbon.

Commenting on the Hungarian economy as a whole, Szijjártó said that it was “entering a new dimension”.

He argued that while the economy had “practically achieved full employment“, all traditional industries were facing requirements of digitalisation. He insisted that a low unemployment rate was a “good challenge” and efforts to promote investment and the economic policy should now focus on quality rather than quantity. He added that Hungary’s “creativity, innovation, its people being hard working and having good mathematical skills” will ensure a good position for the country in the race for digital projects.

Source: MTI