Good Friends of the Hungarian People

The British Chamber of Commerce in Hungary (BCCH) has a history of over three decades. Its successful activities have resulted in its membership being expanded over the past few years, further spreading British good business practices in Hungary. It has fruitful collaboration with fellow chambers in Budapest and looking forward to the same with the new British Ambassador as well.

“I think the greatest achievement for us throughout our history has been to bring the vision of what we think is British to the Hungarian government and to the people to say: this is exactly who we are and this is the way that we do business. And it's been very successful,” BCCH Chairman Duncan Graham tells Diplomacy&Trade.

He stresses that the United Kingdom is one of the top ten investor countries in Hungary and British companies employ somewhere in the region of 70,000 people within Hungary. “So, for all of that time, we wanted to show support to Hungary then as a fairly new free nation. We wanted to show support for the people here, but then having done that, we wanted to back it up by bringing infrastructure and help create jobs wherever we could. And I think we've stuck with that. I think even through Brexit, we've shown ourselves to be good friends of the Hungarian people.”

Cherishing Hungarian talent
Regarding the major areas of business where British companies are involved in Hungary, the Chairman believes it is starting to change. “For a long time, it was business services and global headquarters for some of our major companies. That's because there was a very high-quality employee pool able to do this work thanks to a high level of education in Hungary. So, that gave us a really good quality workplace to the point where even the likes of Tesco business services relocated from India to Budapest. So, it wasn't all about money. It had to be about the quality of the workforce and so forth, and a country that wants to move forward. However, I think now we're looking more to things like data, artificial intelligence (AI), technical services, we're seeing that there's an awful lot of talent here and that's an area that the UK is really trying hard to develop, and to be at the forefront We see this area in the whole region as really important. Hungary is such a great hub, not only for just businesses in this country, but also dealing with businesses across border with the neighbors.“

Success attracts more members
The membership base of the British Chamber of Commerce in Hungary has seen a great expansion in the past few years with important firms joining. Duncan Graham is of the view that this development is due to the success of the chamber’s work and it is that achievement that has attracted interest from other companies. ”Due to the crisis caused by the new coronavirus epidemic, there was a move for a while away from face-to-face meetings and direct business-to-business negotiations. Over the past three or four years since the pandemic, you've seen it move very much back to ‘I want to meet who I'm dealing with and I want to explore ideas’. So, the idea of networking and meeting other key personnel has shown to be very, very important, especially when a lot of your workforce are remote. We've been very successful in getting them involved.”

Transparent and direct in business
One of the aims of BCCH is representing the principles of British business values. In that regard, the Chamber’s Chairman stresses that they like to be direct in business. “We like to give a set of promises, which we are able to keep or a time frame of promises that we're able to keep. I think the Hungarian businesses or the Hungarians that work for British businesses like that approach. They like the way that we deal with companies. They like that even if we can't deliver on time, we're very clear about what we can do, which has been a British business practice for a long time. Obviously, most of our member companies now have Hungarians in all the key posts as opposed to years ago when we brought British people in – we don't do that anymore. The quality of Hungarian CEOs is excellent. As CEOs of British companies, they understand the approach that we have: trying to be transparent and direct.”

CEO dinners
The British Chamber of Commerce in Hungary organizes several events for providing networking opportunities for its members to facilitate direct business contacts. “From this point of view, I think our CEO dinners are excellent events, very well attended. We have one every month and we have a key CEO from a company that he/she would like to present and have a discussion. These top managers are not necessarily from a BCCH member company, sometimes we've had some that aren't. In October, we welcomed the head of a company that isn't a member at the moment. Recently, we had one with the CEO of 4iG, the company that took over Vodafone Hungary (which is now called ‘One Hungary’). They became one of our newest members and wanted to be active and involved straight away,” Duncan Graham highlights.

Taking care of members
It is also important for BCCH to listen to what its members have to say, what issues they raise, matters that may concern several member companies like the current business environment in Hungary. “I think there are issues for some companies in this respect, and it depends on the area. So, for instance, you have the likes of Tesco and others that are under pressure – some of the foreign retailers in the food industry are under pressure. But then, we can help them by collaborating with partners like the German-Hungarian Chamber of Industry and Commerce that are concerned about Penny Market, Aldi and so forth, or the French-Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry that has firms like Auchan that face such issues. Then, we can make joint submissions to say ‘could you please look at this area and are there changes that can be made?’ So, we're able to offer not just the networking opportunities, but a chance for us to lobby on behalf of the members with the government departments that we have a good connection with,” the Chaiman says.

Collaboration of chambers
As for the most important partners in Hungary to work with to achieve all these objectives, Duncan Graham points out that they have got some good connections. “Obviously, the UK Embassy is vital from our point of view and we have a very good working relationship with our Department of Business and Trade (DBT) who are based here. Both the embassy and DBT have been extremely helpful and very supportive. Although we're not in the EU anymore, we're still founding members of the EU-Chambers. They've been good enough to let us remain and we have a really good working relationship. I already mentioned our friends at the German and French chambers. They have been extremely helpful and the same can be said about the Italian Chamber here as we all have similar issues. Understandably, our members don't want to meet the same members every month and thus, the collaboration across joint meetings with other chambers really helps to create a good atmosphere.”

New ambassador
As of last October, Justin Mckenzie Smith took over as the new British Ambassador in Budapest. “He's a Scot, which is good from my point of view as a fellow Scot, but I'm also very much looking forward to continue working with him professionally,” the BCCH Chairman says. “Ambassador Justin Mckenzie Smith has immediately set to work. In just a few weeks, he has shown support to British business and the community at large. He has visited various cities and towns already. With his team in support, I believe we are moving into a very positive year for developing further the relationship between the Hungarian and British people.”