“Hungary is capable of maintaining 4 percent economic growth, and accordingly in the upcoming years it will be successfully catching up to the Western economies to a substantial degree”, Parliamentary State Secretary Levente Magyar from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said on Thursday at the Exim award ceremony in Budapest.

At the award ceremony for partners of the Hungarian Export-Import Bank (Eximbank) and the Hungarian Export Credit Insurance Company, Mr. Magyar recalled that during the past two quarters economic growth has been closer to 5 percent than 4 percent.

“Last year, the volume of Hungarian exports exceeded 100 billion euros, which is an all-time record”, the State Secretary pointed out, adding that “from here, the only way is up” and the Government would like exports to increase further in the upcoming years.

“Eximbank and our partners are succeeding in including more and more companies in financing, and our clients have never before included as many small and medium-sized enterprises as during the past quarter”, Mr. Magyar said.

The State Secretary announced that the Government is launching a new programme to assist successful Hungarian food industry enterprises in the interests of enabling the sector, which is built on “fundamental Hungarian capabilities” to develop further.

In commemoration of the former CEO of Eximbank, Zoltán Urbán, who died last year, Mr. Magyar said he was an example of both humanity and professionalism, and will remain so.

At the event, Eximbank’s new CEO Gergely Jákli said the bank had issued 336 billion forints (EUR 1bn) in loans last year, 206 billion of which was placed with the help of the partners attending the award ceremony. The bank is in partnership with 33 financial institutions, 24 credit institutions and 9 leasing companies, and had a total of 1377 clients last year, of which 1160 were SMEs, he added.

At the event, the Zoltán Urbán Memorial Award was presented to CIB Bank Cls’s head commercial financing advisor Attila Tóth, who concluded the largest number of Eximbank-refinanced contracts last year.

The award for Eximbank’s partner that issues the largest number of loans was presented to Raiffeisen Bank, the award for financing the largest number of SME clients went to CIB Bank, the award for the most rapidly expanding credit institution was presented to the Polgári Bank, while Merkantil Bank received the award for the refinancing partner that concluded the most leasing agreements.

(MTI)