PM Orbán: 2021 could be a fantastic year

Hungary’s last ten years were the country’s most successful decade in the last 100 years, “and the next ten years could be even better”, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in a radio interview on Sunday.

“We are at the gate of great times,” the prime minister told public broadcaster Kossuth Radio, adding that 2021 could already be a “fantastic year” even if its first months still seem “miserable” due to the restrictions in place because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We will transition to an upward trajectory incredibly quickly,”

Orban said about the Hungarian economy. The global economy, too, could embark on a previously unforeseen level of growth, which Hungary will have to outpace, he added. Orbán said the Hungarian economy was on the verge of a paradigm shift “that right now only a few understand”.

Hungary is poised to become a digitalised circular economy that will be capable of processing its own waste,

he said. The country will reduce its carbon emissions “to radically low levels”, it will have full employment and “a growth rate noticeably higher than the western half of the European Union”, he added. The people will prosper as well; they will live in larger homes and have more children, Orbán said.

He said that by the end of the decade, the repatriated profits of Hungarian businesses investing abroad would have to equal the profits foreign businesses take out of the country. Orbán  said that unlike the political left, he did not believe in raising taxes during an economic crisis period.