“Investors prefer to go to countries in which emphasis is placed on responsible business conduct, since they can calculate better with equal competitive conditions and can plan for the longer term”, Minister of State for Financial Policy Affairs Gábor Gion said at an international conference jointly organised by the Ministry of Finance and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
“Responsible conduct also generates a return for enterprises, because ethical conduct is attractive to consumers, and accordingly may definitely be regarded as a competitiveness factor”, the Minister of State added.
“In our changing world, the social and environmental problems increase the value of enterprises for which the generation of profit does not exclude responsible conduct and the creation of value”, Mr. Gion highlighted. As he explained, responsible enterprises contribute to sustainable economic and social development, and do so voluntarily, because in their assessment this behaviour provides a return in the long term”, the Minister of State added, stressing that he regards the fact that financial institutions should also take the issue of responsibility increasingly seriously as extremely important.
In the interests of promoting responsible business conduct, in 1976 the OECD drew up its directives for multinational companies, which represented and continue to represent a new, non-legal instrument to promote the furthering of ethical expectations. The governments of the countries that joined the directive, including 13 countries in addition to the 36 OECD member states, undertook to promote the recommendations determined towards the multinational companies operating in their countries or from their countries. In Hungary, the OECD Hungarian National Contact Point supervised by the Ministry of Finance is undertaking an active role in the realisation of these goals, as also indicated by the conference.
Today’s conference in Budapest was officially opened by Gábor Gion and Chair of the OECD Working Party on Responsible Business Conduct Christine Kaufmann in the presence of some 100 participants, and during the course of the day lectures will be held by State Secretary for Employment Policy Sándor Bodó from the Ministry for Innovation and Technology, and by the Ministry of Finance’s Deputy State Secretary for Financial Policy Affairs László Balogh.
(Ministry of Finance/MTI)
