Serbia is one of the safest investment destinations for Hungarian economic operators outside the European Union, Minister for National Economy Mihály Varga told the Hungarian-language news programme of Pannon RTV in Subotica, following a ceremony to commemorate the Revolution and War of Independence of 1848/1849, a national holiday in Hungary.

The Minister stressed that diplomatic relations between the two countries in the past fifteen-twenty years were worse than they are now when joint development projects are under consideration. “Hungarian entrepreneurs are no longer as reluctant to invest here as they were in the 1990s. It has become much easier to speak to them about investment options in Serbia,” he said.

Mihály Varga pointed out that investing in human capital and persuading young people to participate in vocational training are the most important tasks. “We would like to turn existing schemes into a programme that covers the entire Carpathian Basin and thus we intend to open vocational training centres in Transylvania (Romania), the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina (Serbia), as well as in Zakarpattia Oblast (Ukraine) and Horná zem (Slovakia),” he said adding that employers will thus have sufficient skilled labour force.

The Minister said he met with Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians President István Pásztor to discuss the development projects which could be implemented in Vojvodina in order to keep young people at their homeland. “Therefore, we have to consider in the coming weeks and months where we can speedily launch projects that will create jobs and attach young people to Vojvodina.”

Speaking about the near future he said, “The ideas of people of Vojvodina shall be integrated into the Hungarian economic development programmes that are to be launched soon.” Among the other fields in which Hungarian enterprises could invest the Minister mentioned the food and health tourism sectors, however, Hungarians are much less open to these. Although, he emphasised, it is easier to start some large-scale projects at low costs in Vojvodina.

(Ministry for National Economy)