The government expects to be ready with a new two-year plan to boost economic growth by mid-September, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told public broadcaster Kossuth Radio.
In his regular weekly interview, the prime minister said he discussed economic policy measures with the relevant ministers and experts and asked them to combine their individual proposals drafted over the past several weeks to form a “logical growth plan containing dozens of measures” by mid-September. He said he expected the two-year plan which the government will implement starting with the fourth quarter of 2020 to pass “all the necessary political and government forums” by the middle of next month. Orbán said his government’s economic policy up until now had been focused on saving jobs. “This is not something we’ll shelve, we won’t give up on this goal,” the prime minister said.
He noted that the government had imposed a moratorium on loan repayments which had allowed hundreds of thousands of families to focus on stabilising their finances. Businesses have also been able to retain their employees as they “broke free from the grip of banks”, Orbán said. The government also introduced job protection schemes and launched development plans aimed at job creation, he added. The government has succeeded in saving jobs, Orbán said, arguing that employment was up compared with January. He added, however, that there was more work to be done, as employment figures were still down compared to June 2019. He said the government had also done a good job in preparing its economic growth plan as a part of the funds earmarked for the coronavirus response measures had been used to finance future investments. Hungarian investors will launch the projects they invested in with the help of the government’s 100 billion forint (EUR 286.3m) investment support scheme as early as next year, the prime minister added.
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