The European Commission has endorsed all three operative programmes supervised by the Ministry for National Economy and thus the door has been opened to implement the largest Hungarian economic stimulus and development programme of all time, Minister of State for the Utilization of EU Funds Balázs Rákossy said.

The implementation of programmes aiming to support micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises, boost the economies of regions, achieve full employment and facilitate re-industrialization can only be realized by the well-designed and well-defined utilization of EU funding, he stressed adding that the first tenders are scheduled to be announced in the spring.

The amount made available for the Economic Development and Innovation Operative Programme (GINOP), the Regional and Municipal Development Operative Programme (TOP) and the Competitive Central Hungary Operative Programme (VEKOP), totalling more than HUF 4000bn, will be utilized by the Government to facilitate economic growth and increase competitiveness.

GINOP is the flagship programme among EU-funded economic development schemes. The objective of the programme is to increase added value, improve employment and raise the number of new enterprises. Through the implementation of the programme the Government aims to increase the number of people under the age of 25 years participating in youth employment schemes to 135 thousand and bring the number of participants in vocational training courses up to 450 thousand. The volume of foreign trade by micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises is expected to rise from HUF 6400bn per year to at least HUF 8300bn. The programme’s goal is to provide grants to SMEs active in some 10 thousand productive sub sectors and to increase the number of subsidized enterprises from 3400 to 22 500.

TOP, a fund of HUF 1230bn, will cover the EU-defined “less developed regions” within the country, namely 18 counties outside of Budapest and Pest County. The programme is set to explore and exploit regional characteristics that could be turned profitable. In underprivileged regions, some 700 thousand people are set to benefit from urban rehabilitation projects and the number of available places at nurseries, kindergartens and family day-care facilities will increase by 18 thousand. It is also anticipated that the number of visitors at subsidized cultural and natural heritage sites will rise by 1 million each year. The area of industrial fields and parks planned to be developed is more than 2000ha.

The primary objective of the HUF 288bn VEKOP is to boost the competitiveness of the Central Hungary region and address the special challenges that Budapest and Pest County are facing. As a result of the programme, 4500 new places are expected to become available at nurseries, kindergartens and family day-care facilities and more than 25 thousand jobseekers are seen to participate in vocational training courses.

(Ministry for National Economy)