The Swiss National Bank, the European Central Bank, the Narodowy Bank Polski and the Magyar Nemzeti Bank are announcing that they will discontinue EUR/CHF foreign exchange swaps, whereby Swiss franc is provided against the euro, within a term of seven days. Demand for liquidity provided by this type of operation has declined, and conditions in the Swiss franc funding market have improved. Therefore, similarly to the other three central banks, the Magyar Nemzeti Bank will conduct the last one-week EUR/CHF swap operation on January 25 2010.
Altogether 8 hospitals will be developed with the help of funding amounting to more than HUF 80 billion, made available under the New Hungary Development Plan.The HUF 12 billion assistance contract concerning the construction of the new block of the healthcare center in Szeged has just been signed. By constructing this complex healthcare block, the center currently operating with 385 beds will be enlarged and developed into a 650-bed service facility, where, among others, it will also be possible to integrate the full range of high standard medical services for treating heart and vascular diseases.
Austria's TiSUN said it had completed the installation of 1,500 square meters of solar panels in a refurbishment of Hungary's biggest housing block.The panels will provide hot water for the building's 3,000 residents. They were installed as a part of a larger investment to improve the energy efficiency of the building, supported with a EUR 4.45 million subsidy from local and European Union funding. Homeowners in the building paid 27 pct of the cost.
Bosch plants in Miskolc and Hatvan, in NE Hungary, will take over the Cardiff-based operations until 2011. Plant director Adam Willmott told the BBC the move was "pure rationalizing" after a feasibility study had concluded the switch to Hungary was necessary. Labor costs in Hungary are 65 pct of those in Cardiff, Bosch has been present in Hungary since 1899 and was reorganized in 1991.
London-based Bank of America-Merrill Lynch has released its monthly global emerging markets report and dedicated a whole section to the Hungarian "draconian" procyclical fiscal tightening during the recent years. The section entitled "Hungary - world's fiscal leader" is not the first occasion that the City acknowledges the achievements of the technocratic government, which handled debt mitigation in a successful way. General deficit was expected to be around 3.9 pct of the GDP by the end of 2009 but finally turned out to be less. During the four-year-long fiscal tightening, expenses were cut by around 10 pct of the GDP, the largest ever in EEMEA history. BoA/ML predicts a 0.7 pct structural budgetary surplus, which means that the 3.8 pct GDP-ratio deficit is mostly generated by interest rates and capital redemptions emitted by the state, rather than the difference between basic spending and revenues.Read our press monitoring section below!
Israeli drug maker TEVA will lay the cornerstone of a EUR 65 million investment at its base in Gödöllő, on the outskirts of Budapest, on January 14, business daily Világgazdaság reported on January 12. National Development and Economy Minister Csaba István Varga and Hungarian Investment and Trade Development Agency Investment Director Csaba Kilián will participate at the ceremony, the paper said.
The government will spend HUF 2 billion (EUR 7.49 million) in Labor Market Fund resources on job creation and job preservation in 2010, Ministry of Social and Labor Affairs State Secretary Gábor Simon said.The government has earmarked HUF 1.5 billion in support for investments creating an estimated 1,400 jobs, a further HUF 200 million for high added-value investments, projected to create 250 new jobs and HUF 444 million for a program creating 600 new telecommuting jobs. The government has allocated HUF 500 million in job-preservation funds aimed at safeguarding 3,500-4,000 jobs, Mr Simon said.In 2009 the government utilized HUF 2.5 billion in Labor Market Fund resources for job preservation and creation, including HUF 555 million in support for 251 companies to create 2,296 new jobs, Mr Simon noted.
On December 21, seven members of the National Bank of Hungary's (NBH) Monetary Council, voted to reduce the base rate to 6.25 pct: Péter Bihari, Vilmos Bihari, Ilona Hardy, Ferenc Karvalits, Júlia Király, Judit Neményi, András Simor. One member, Tamás Bánfi, voted to reduce the base rate to 6.00.Council members agreed that previous decisions on interest rate and comments on interest rate policy had made it obvious that, in view of the outlook for inflation, it was justified to continuously reduce interest rates, which the MNB was implementing gradually.
Changes in Local Business Tax Obligations from January 1 2010Click here to read
BoA-Lynch: "Hungary - World's Fiscal Leader"Bloomberg.com Click here to read Realdeal.huClick here to read MTI-ECONEWS To remain competitive, Hungary's economy has to grow faster than EU average - Bajnai After the crisis, Hungary's growth rate must exceed the European Union average by two percentage points if the country's economy is to be competitive and attract investors, Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai said at a conference in Vienna on Tuesday. Click here to read Portfolio.hu Ukrainian Arm of Hungary's OTP Bank Posts Double-Digit Retail Deposit Growth in 2009.Bloomberg cited an unnamed source at OTP Bank as saying that the Ukrainian unit of Hungary's OTP Bank had double-digit growth in household deposits in 2009. The source added that capital adequacy ratio of the Ukrainian bank is well above the statutory limit. Click here to read Reuters SNB to Stop Franc Tenders With Hungary, Poland"Conditions in the financial markets by and large normalized already by the summer of last year," said analyst Zoltán Török at Raiffeisen. "This is another element fitting into the bigger picture that the crisis is easing." Click here to read
"Daniel Dăianu sends a very strong and important warning. The main lesson from the crisis is that to deliver their best results in terms of growth, employment and fight against poverty, markets must be embedded in the right set of principles and rules." - Pier Carlo Padoan, Deputy-Secretary General of the OECD. Click here for more information
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