The Republikon Institute organised a conference which theme was the current Hungarian economy situation and economic options. The event had 2 parts. In the first part György Surányi had a lecture about the current Hungarian economic situation, and in the second part, economists and economy experts discussed about the Hungarian economy problems and solutions.
The experts of the conference were Gábor Bojár (founder of Graphisoft), Mária Zita Petschnig (analyst of the Financial Research Zrt.) and György Surányi (academic and former President of the Hungarian National Bank).
Gábor Horn opened the conference, who explained, that we don’t know, that the current economic situation and the Hungarian Government steps are causing an economical crisis, or these government actions helps us to get out of of the current awful economic situation. He expressed his regrets, that the right-wing economist cancelled their attendance, therefore the clash, between the pro-government and non-government sides, is not going to happen. He also talked about that in the second part of the conference the experts will talk about, what is causing the current Hungarian economic situation, how important is the Russian invasion impact for the Hungarian economy, furthermore, how important is the current trap situation, which the government made for itself, for the Hungarian economy and lastly how can we deal with the economic problems as an integral part of the EU.
Gábor Surányi analysed the current Hungarian economic situation in the first part. He started his presentation that there had been opposite opinions about the progress of the Hungarian economy both on the pro-government and non-government side, in the last two years. After the opening, he started talking about the Hungarian economy situation in the last 10 years. He declared that there has been a turning point thanks to the pandemic, and it has been started a deglobalization processes. He also stated that the Hungarian economic growth showed impressive numbers in the last ten years, although this growth means, that the South-European countries fell back from the EU mean. There had been a largely absent catch up to the Western-European countries, and in our region, we fall back 2-3 positions in the economic indicators. He also talked about the Hungarian National Bank role in the growing inflation and the situation of the Hungarian national debt.
The experts talked about the solutions of the current Hungarian economic problems in the second part of the conference.
In terms of the extra profit tax, Gábor Bojár who analysed this measure from the entrepreneur perspective, declared that this action’s goal is not to develop the Hungarian economy, because the government biggest expenditures are the Project Liget and to move the administration to the Castle of Buda. These actions do not improve the Hungarian economy situation.
Mária Zita Petsching highlighted the general government deficit because it’s reached 88% of the calculation for the whole Year in April. She also mentioned that inflation is not bad for the budget, therefore there will be more government action, which will limit the Hungarian economy growth. She criticized the expansion of Paks II, and the Budapest-Beograd railway track expansion won’t get a return.
Gábor Surányi agreed with Mária Petsching about that the inflation is good for the budget and that the government investments won’t get a return. He talked about correcting the budget, if the energy prices will fall back where they were before the Russian invasion, the government must suspend the extra taxes because if they don’t do it, there will be no possibility to suspend the extra taxes in the future. He believes that the corporation taxes must raise from 9% to 15% for the medium-sized and the large enterprises. He also mentioned, that MOL makes monopole profit, therefore the government don’t want to go for the oil embargo against Russia.
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