“A joint Hungarian-American fund has been established to fund the exports of small and medium-sized enterprises to the American market”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in a telephone statement to Hungarian news agency MTI from New York on Tuesday.

“It is no exaggeration to call the past five years of the Hungarian economy a success story, in view of the fact that we have achieved outstanding economic growth even by EU standards, in addition to which we have achieved full employment and are continuously decreasing sovereign debt”, the Minister declared. “The continuous increase in exports has played a huge role in this success story: Hungary has broken its export record every year for the past five years, and we are now among the top 35 countries in the world that realise an export performance of over one hundred billion euros a year”, he added.

“The United States is the Hungarian economy’s number one export market outside the European Union”, he pointed out, adding that while there are great opportunities there for Hungary, is must also be acknowledged that the U.S. market is extremely difficult to occupy. “Despite this, Hungary exported 3.5 billion dollars’ worth of goods and services to the United States last year, an increase of 11 percent compared to the previous year”, he explained.

“There is huge potential in helping small and medium-sized businesses that develop technological innovation to appear on the American market”, the Minister declared, explaining that until now Hungarian small and medium-sized businesses have been unable to achieve major results in the U.S. because of a lack of local knowledge and high cost levels. “In the interests of enabling these enterprises to achieve success and be able to export to the United States, Eximbank has established a ten billion forint (EUR 30 million) capital fund, the Columbus Fund, in which the bank has deposited seven billion forints (EUR 21 million), with the remaining 3 billion forints (EUR 9 million) contributed from private sources”, the Minister announced.

In the interests of performing its task, this fund will primarily be acquiring part ownership in, and providing capital to, Hungarian small and medium-sized enterprises operating within the fields of infocommunications, healthcare technologies, and agricultural innovation. “We are counting on Hungarian small and medium-sized enterprises being successful on the American market with the help of the Columbus Fund, thus increasing Hungary’s export performance and helping the country achieve further export records”, Mr. Szijjártó said.

(MTI)