In the latest issue of “Going for Growth”, presented by the OECD on 26 February in Shanghai, the organization provides an overview of economic policy reforms of member countries and certain selected countries. The report highlights the 1 percentage point reduction of the personal income tax and the reorganization of vocational education in Hungary as major pro-growth measures.

In this interim report, the OECD does not assess the performance of individual countries in detail:  it evaluates certain recently implemented measures of groups of countries, and singles out a number of reform steps.

The OECD praises Hungary in two aspects: the report applauds the 1 percentage point cut of the personal income tax as a pro-growth measure that reduces the tax wedge and the institutional reform of Hungarian vocational education system as a major HR investment.

As a whole, the study finds that although member states have managed to produce results in tackling some key challenges, the deceleration of the pace of growth concerning the implementation of reforms observed in 2013-2014 has continued in 2015. This process is faster in Southern European countries than in Northern Europe. Combating unemployment is still a pressing issue for several countries. One of the key conclusions of the OECD is that in formulating reform strategies aimed at maintaining a welfare society governments all over the world must also deal with deep-rooted, structural flaws which have been revealed by the global crisis but which had been created well before that.

(Ministry for National Economy)