There are no mountains, minerals and raw materials in Debrecen – we have “only” the knowledge of the local residents. We can and want to rely on these resources. In the following years we going to invest to boost health tourism in the city – said Lajos Kosa, mayor.
Before 1990 the driving forces were the enormus state owned farms, food industry and factories
such as the tobacco and the rolling bearings factory behind the local economy. After the socialism
they expected that these huge factories had little chance to survive.
Therefore, we had to redefine the city’s economy, and we turned towards the attraction of high value-added industries. "We have seen that in cheapness we cannot compete with China or India,"
The calculation – and the investment strategy associated with it – lead to our success because the former socialist large-scale farms and factories disappeared but in the city thousands of well-paying jobs had been created due to the settling IT and pharma companies.
Debrecen`s next step in the urban development strategy to do everything what they can to be an important center of European health industry. "We, the politicians are creating the conditions and our experts told us that in orthopedic, gynecological or rheumatology we can be at the forefront in Europe. So we have to increase the clinic, spa, airports and hotel capacity.
Debrecen mayor sees that is not always made good use of EU funds in the country.
While Hungary has well-known structural labor market problems, indeed the most important was the rehabilitation of urban centers in some fo the Hungarian cities. Kosa added that was a waste of money. Debrecen’s main square has been restored using of its own funds with the aim to attract the technology industries. "The EU funds would have been spent and paid to Economic Growth"
Miskolc received the biggest EU funds (58 billion Huf) and Debrecen holds the fifth place with the nearly 30 billion Huf. In effectiveness the list starts with Erd, Pécs and Szeged, and Debrecen in the fourth-place with a winning rate of 86 percent of submitted proposals.
The journal quoted that the local asset management in Debrecen serving as a model in more than ten years. The two most successful model of employer, the Hajdu-Bihar and Borsod county can save about one million Huf on an annual basis by this method.
The unified management potential savings opportunities in other fields may also be used.
The savings in each case rely on the removal of unnecessary administration, procurement
concentration and the municipality take care the long-term profit improvements.
