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SZIJJÁRTÓ: NEW GOVT PROGRAMME TO ENCOURAGE HUNGARIAN FIRMS INVEST FOREIGN PROFITS AT HOME

 

The government is drafting a programme to encourage Hungarian businesses to invest profits generated abroad on capacity expansion at home, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó said on Thursday. The ministry cited Szijjártó telling an event in Oslo organised by the Scandinavian subsidiary of Vajda Papir that the Hungarian company producing hygienic paper products had been present in Norway for ten years. He added that the company was a good example of how Hungarian companies were successfully expanding in foreign markets.
In global comparison, Hungary ranks 95th in terms of the size of its population but it is 34th in terms of the global ranking of exports with 142 billion euros reported last year, he said. Companies that hit a glass ceiling in terms of exports must bring their production closer to their target markets, and the government supports projects to achieve this goal, the minister added. Szijjártó said that in addition to increasing export performance, the difference between multinationals’ profits taken out of Hungary and Hungarian companies’ foreign-generated profits brought back home should be reduced. The two figures will certainly not be equal in the near future but it is important to improve the situation, he added. To help improve the situation, the government is preparing a programme offering various incentives to encourage Hungarian companies to invest their foreign-generated profits on capacity expansion at home, he said. In the past decade, Hungary has been able to emerge stronger from every crisis and it has good foundations to face a new era of global economy, he said.