Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stressed the importance of forging ties between foreign and Hungarian businesses at the annual conference for the country’s top diplomats in the Hungarian Foreign Ministry on Monday.

The President of the Republic János Áder presented internationally acknowledged Nobel Prize-winning author Imre Kertész and internationally renowned inventor Ernõ Rubik with the Order of Saint Stephen at the proposal of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

The recent Holland country focus in Diplomacy & Trade included the view on the Hungarian-Dutch relations by the Dutch Department of the University of Debrecen as well as that of the ELTE University in Budapest. This time we have the article by the ELTE department.

The Pan-European picnic that eventually led to the fall of the Iron Curtain was celebrated with a family day on the Hungarian side of the border on the 25th anniversary of the August 19, 1989 event and with a conference in the nearby town of Sopron.

Hungary’s gross general government debt was 85.1% of gross domestic product at the end of the second quarter of 2014. It is believed to be related to the peculiar course in Hungary’s debt financing and a correction of the end-2013 doctoring of debt figures.

Professionals see significant opportunities in the financing of export activities of companies, says István Fetter, the Head of Trade Finance at CIB Bank Hungary. He also explains how his bank is able to provide prefential loans for different firms.

At the 25th anniversary of the dismantling of the Iron Curtain, Gergely Prõhle of the Hungarian Ministry of Human Capacities said that freedom consists in small, practical things and depends on how common paths are built, what kind of joint cultural events are organized.

The most successful in chess history, Hungary's Judit Polgár, has announced that she retires from competitive chess at the age of 38. She will now concentrate more on her chess foundation and the further popularization of chess education in schools.

The Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture says direct effects of the Russian measures on Hungarian agricultural exports are negligible, and primarily cause actual difficulties only to enterprises that export exclusively or to a major extent to Russia.

One of Europe's biggest cultural - and mainly music - festival, the Sziget Festival on Óbuda island (hence the name) on the River Danube opened its gates this Monday. We have for you a preview by a Dutch journalist, Maria Douwes.

Start spreading the news: one of the most comprehensive exhibitions of Rembrandt and Dutch Golden Age Paintings will be held at the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest from the end of October until the middle of February 2015.

The National Bank of Hungary (MNB) has purchased a castle hotel in eastern Hungary and it will operate the facility as its own resort in the future, the financial website portfolio.hu reports on the basis of news from HVG released on Thursday.

“Races are coming your way, so forget all your duties, oh yeah…” Do these lines ring a bell? Did you know that it is mandatory to have a bell on your bike, at least in Hungary? Diplomacy & Trade featured this article in its recent Dutch country focus.

Last year, the number of visitors at the 200 most significant Hungarian baths, also frequented by tourists, was some 31 million and development projects related to these are to be continued in the coming European Union fiscal period.

The recent Dutch country focus of Diplomacy & Trade featured an interview with the head of the Political and Economic Department who says the Embassy is prepared to act as an interlocutor between the Dutch business community and the Hungarian authorities.