In an interview after his negotiations in Baghdad on Monday, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said that the command officers of the Hungarian contingent will arrive in Erbil by the end of May, and that the rest of the active contingent will be in Iraq to fight Islamic State by the end of August.
At the Hungarian-Russian economic forum of the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (HCCI), the Parliamentary State Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade said that the Russian market is very important for Hungary, therefore Hungarian enterprises must be ready for the opportunities after the end of the Russian embargo.
At a podium discussion in Berlin organised as part of Europe Week, Deputy State Secretary for EU Affairs at the Prime Minister’s Office Vince Szalay-Bobrovinczky said that Hungary is still a Europe-friendly country, despite the debates of recent years.
In the European Commission’s Spring 2015 Economic Forecast, Hungary’s economic outlook has been revised upward. Still, the effects of measures presented in the Convergence Programme, such as next year’s tax reductions that are expected to stimulate consumption, could not be factored into the report. Besides that, the Commission’s macro-economic and fiscal projections are basically in line with the expectations of the Government of Hungary.
Five countries from Central and Eastern Europe are urging joint action, such as the extension of the reverse-charge VAT mechanism, Minister for National Economy Mihály Varga told MTI in a telephone interview from Vienna, where the Czech, Slovak, Austrian and Bulgarian finance ministers held a conference on combating VAT fraud.
Government Commissioner for Pest Country Richárd Tarnai has announced that by the end of May 991 barrels containing the most dangerous substances will have to be removed from the Budapest Chemical Works Illatos út plant.
At a press conference in Budapest, Parliamentary State Secretary László Szabó stated that: “Nowadays a new international order is taking shape, in which China and the Asian countries are the future”.
In an interview with TV channel Echo TV on Friday, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that we are living through a period of civic consolidation. He also pointed out that there is some “disorientation” on the political right.
In the second month of the year, the volume of Hungary’s foreign trade continued to rise: the volume of both exports and imports gained some 9 percent. Thanks to improving performance, the country’s foreign trade surplus was up by EUR 41 million higher year-on-year, to EUR 850 million. In light of trends at the beginning of the year, trade volume growth has become sounder, as – besides the vehicle manufacturing sector – the export volume of pharmaceuticals is also expected to be a key factor.
The Ministry of Agriculture’s Deputy State Secretary for Agricultural Development and Hungaricums, István Loránd Szakáli, held talks in Brasília on strengthening Brazilian-Hungarian cooperation in agriculture, sharing experiences within the field of organic farming and importing GMO-free soy.