The Hungarian Government’s Vojvodina Economic Development Programme will be reaching the 250 million euro mark in 2018, which means the Government has kept its 2015 promise, according to which it will be providing a new vision of the future to the Hungarian community in Vojvodina within a short period of time and will be placing the Hungarian economy in Vojvodina onto new foundations”, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Parliamentary State Secretary, Levente Magyar said on Thursday in Bácskossuthfalva (Stara Moravica), where the Programme’s latest tenders were launched.

When the Government launched the economic development programme two and a half years ago they didn’t promise that life would become easier and require less struggle from one day to the next, “but we did promise that we will be opening up a perspective before the Hungarian community in Vojvodina, the likes of which could not have been expected or contemplated in previous decades”, he added.

“These tenders and results are helping many thousands of Hungarian families in Vojvodina, and are compensating them for having decided to remain in the land of their birth” he said. “It is a historic compensation for the many difficulties that the community has had to suffer during the past century”, Mr. Magyar highlighted.

“The Serbian Government’s support of the Programme was essential to its success, in addition to which the positive atmosphere that has characterised Hungarian-Serbian relations in recent years and he alliance of strategic depth that has developed between the two states had also contributed to the Programme’s success”, he added. “The Hungarian community in Vojvodina has a bright future ahead of it, because both the political and economic conditions are given for enabling us to continue this Programme”, the Parliamentary State Secretary said in closing.

The Hungarian Government is realising the economic development Programme in what used to be southern Hungary in cooperation with the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (VMSZ). At his press conference in Stara Moravica, VMSZ President István Pásztor stressed: We were able to realise the partly because the Hungarian community in Vojvodina had the requires strength, and partly thanks to the fact that during the past eight years Hungary has had a government that has made the county capable of supporting high volume cross-border projects, and which thinks in terms of the Hungarian nation and accordingly also regards cross-border communities as important. He expressed his hope that Hungary will continue to have a government of this kind during the next four years. Over 14 thousand successful tender applications are expected to have received funding by the end of the Programme, he added.

The tenders launched on Thursday concern the development of new start-ups, the production and distribution of local products, and suppliers for agricultural integrators.

The Hungarian Government had originally earmarked a budget of 50 billion forints (EUR 160 million) for the Vojvodina Economic Development Programme, but later increased the level of funding, as a result of which the total sum of loans and non-returnable funding now exceeds 65 billion for tins (EUR 208 million). The programme for the 2016-2018 period palces the greatest emphasis on agriculture, tourism and the development of small and medium-sized enterprises, and the programme’s main goal is to stop young people from seeking work abroad and to reverse this process.

(MTI)