Budapest International Fair to Begin This Week

September 9th 2008

The 112th Budapest International Fair will be held from September 10th to September 14th at the Hungexpo in Budapest.
The event, considered Hungary's fair of the year, will feature green energy, home and garden, sports and leisure as well as family programmes.
Exhibitors from 20 countries will present their wares on 15,500 square meters (166,900 sq feet). This year's guest of honor is India, with 70 exhibitors registered for the fair.

Otthon Centrum Sees New Home Prices Rising in Line With Inflation

September 8th 2008

Hungarian real estate company Otthon Centrum projects the price of new homes in Hungary will increase about 7 percent in 2008, level with the rate of inflation, but it still sees prices of both new and resale homes doubling in ten years, analyst David Valko said at a press conference on September 3rd 2008.
About 11,200 new homes will be completed in Budapest by year-end. Demand for resale homes is expected to fall 5-10 percent during the year.
Prices for resale homes in brick buildings averaged HUF 269,000 per square meter (EUR 1125.5) in the first half of the year. The price for free-standing resale homes was HUF 197,000 per square meter (EUR 824).

Hungary's Q2 GDP Growth Revised Down to 2.0 percent

September 8th 2008

The Central Statistics Office (KSH) revised Hungary's Q2 year-on-year GDP growth down from the preliminary figure to 2.0 percent in a second reading published on September 5th 2008.
Second-quarter GDP rose by a seasonally- and calendar-adjusted 0.6 percent from the first quarter of 2008, unchanged from the first reading. Quarter-on-quarter growth was unchanged from the first quarter, stabilizing after moving between naught and 0.3 percent in 2007.
First-half GDP rose 1.9 percent according to unadjusted figures, and 1.5 percent according to calendar year-adjusted figures.

Antenna Hungaria Signs Contract for Digital TV, Radio Concessions

September 5th 2008

The Hungarian National Telecommunications Authority (NHH) on September 5th 2008 signed a contract with Antenna Hungaria on the operation of terrestrial digital television and radio concessions.
Broadcasting company Antenna Hungaria, owned by Telediffusion de France (TDF), was announced the winner of a tender for the concessions at the end of July.
NHH chairman Daniel Pataki said the switch to digital from analogue television would expand the offering of channels and increase competition across the country. It will also mean the introduction of a new service in Hungary: mobile television.

Azerbaijan's Unibank Could be OTP Acquisition Target

September 5th 2008

"Hungarian OTP Bank is a potential purchaser of the stocks of Azerbaijani Unibank," head of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development's Baku Office Francis Delaey told TrendCapital, an Azeri website, on September 4th 2008.
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) owns 15.2 percent of Unibank.
Unibank is the second largest private bank in Azerbaijan, which held 6 percent of Azerbaijani banking system’s assets and 5 percent of retail deposits at the end of the first quarter of this year. The bank is the market leader in automobile and mortgage crediting.

Three-Fourths of Hungary's Cereal Crop is of Good or Excellent Quality - Extended

September 5th 2008

Three-fourths of Hungary's 7.9 million-ton cereal crop - including wheat, barley, oats, rye and triticale - is of good or excellent quality, Agriculture Minister Jozsef Graf said on September 4th 2008.
This year's cereal crop is 41 percent bigger than last year's and 23 percent more than the average crop in the past five years, Graf said. The wheat crop was 5.6 million tons, 40 percent more than last year's and 24 percent more than the average crop in the past five years.
Wheat yielded 5 tons per hectare, compared to 3.6 tons per hectare in 2007 and an average of 4 tons per hectare over the last five years.

Hungarian, Polish Farm Ministers for Scrapping of Special Duties on Chinese Apple Concentrate

September 5th 2008

Agriculture Minister Jozsef Graf on September 4th 2008. said he would work with his counterpart in Poland to press for the elimination of EU preferential duties on apple concentrate from China.
Graf was speaking before signing an agreement that will give Hungary's apple growers a HUF 70m-per-hectare subsidy to compensate them for their extra costs arising from last year's frost. Also under the agreement, Agrana, which controls 60 percent of Hungary's juice apple market, said it would pay suppliers at least EUR 0.09 per kilogram for their apples. Austria's Rauch, the other major apple processing company active in Hungary, did not accept the compromise farm-gate price.
Apple growers in northeastern Hungary have staged a series of demonstrations over the past few weeks to demand higher prices for their produce.

Sara Lee Completes HUF 1 Billion of Investments at Hungary Plant

September 5th 2008

US food giant Sara Lee completed HUF 1 billion (EUR 4.2 million) of investments at its plant on the outskirts of Budapest this year, CEO of Sara Lee Hungary Tibor Seres announced on September 4th 2008.
One of the investments involved a reconstruction of the unit's tea plant to accommodate new packaging technology, Seres said.
The plant is Sara Lee's second-biggest tea packaging unit in Europe. Its output is sold in Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Romania and Bulgaria, in addition to Hungary.
Sara Lee controls almost 41 percent of Hungary's roasted and ground coffee market and 43 percent of the tea market, according to market research company Nielsen.

INA Shareholders Say MOL Offer Price Too Low

September 5th 2008

Big Croatian investors have said Hungarian oil and gas company MOL's price in a public purchase offer for the 30 percent of Croatian peer INA does not reflect the company's market value, Croatian news agency Hina said on September 3rd 2008.
MOL on September 1st 2008 said it would offer HRK 2,800 (EUR 394.3) per share for the 30 percent stake, noting that the price is HRK 1,110 (EUR 154.9) over INA's IPO price and HRK 227 (EUR 32.4) over the share's three-month average price prior to MOL's announcement it intended to buy out the company.
The big investors pointed out that the offer price is under the share's trading price in the past month. It reflects neither the expected effects of the further deregulation of Croatia's gas market nor refinery improvements, they added.

Hungarian Banking Sector's After-Tax Profit Declines 13 percent in H1 2008

September 4th 2008

The combined after-tax profit of Hungary's banking sector fell 13 percent in the second half, while combined total assets rose 16.7 percent in the twelve months to June, according to figures published on the website of Hungarian market regulator PSZAF late on September 3rd 2008.
The only segment with a rise in profits was that of home savings and mortgage banks. Mid-size banks suffered the most both in terms of profits and assets, while large banks raised their market share to above three-quarters of the market.
Combined after-tax profit of the sector fell to HUF 176 billion (EUR 739 million) in H1 of this year and combined total assets rose to HUF 25,655 billion (EUR 108.3 billion) at the end of June 2008.