Orban signs Szekesfehervar development agreement

Budapest, May 26 (MTI) – Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Tuesday signed an agreement with the mayor of Szekesfehervar, central Hungary, on developments planned in the city.

Plans outlined in the framework of the Modern Cities programme include upgrading the city centre, fitting out a new concert hall, a sports and events complex as well as a housing construction scheme, according to the agreement signed with Andras Cser-Palkovics.

The cost of the events hall is not yet estimated but the government has allocated 500 million forints (EUR 1.6m) for the planning, Orban said.

An upgrade of the Szent Gyorgy hospital of Fejer county is nearing completion, Orban noted.

The airport in nearby Borgond, which was bought earlier with government support, will be upgraded to serve sports and business interests, he added.

Other planned projects include kitting out a disused building as an education centre for secondary school arts and sports students. The city centre will be linked up with Zichy liget, a leafy park, with some of the traffic taken under ground. The famous Fekete Sas Hotel, which has been vacant for years, will be converted into a concert hall, the design costs financed from central coffers, Orban said.

Szekesfehervar has virtually full employment, he said, noting that for some types of job there is a labour shortage. Ensuring decent housing will attract skilled workers to the city, Orban added.

The city will be drawn in to join tourism projects at Lake Velence nearby, he added.

Orban said most of the developments approved at a cabinet meeting in the city in 2013 have been completed. He mentioned the nationalisation of a 2.55 billion forint heating plant and a new 14.5 billion by-bass circling the city, which is nearing completion. A new 8.3 billion forint wing for the county hospital has also been completed, he said.

Cser-Palkovics said the city has never before received as much central funding as in the past few years. The city’s debt consolidation package was worth 18 billion forints, which is a form of support, since this is how much the city would have had to pay to banks if the debt had not been written off, he said.

Orban said the Modern Cities programme is financed party from national government sources, some of it spread out over several years, and partly from EU development funds.

Photo: MTI

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