Hungary to boost competitiveness

The Hungarian Prime Minister’s cabinet chief, János Lázár announced at his regular weekly briefing this thursday that the country must find the wqys to be more competitive and catch up with Poland in the Visegrád Group, portfolio.hu reports.

According to current data, small and medium-sized enterprises need to spend one and a half month with tax returns and tax office issues, the costs of which reach 4% of GDP, Lázár said, reacting to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) latest Global Competitiveness Report released on Wednesday.

The minister underlined that Poland is also in the top one-third of similar rankings therefore the cabinet will look into what makes Poland’s competitiveness that better. For now he only said that the measures aimed at boosting Hungary’s competitiveness will most likely include the simplification of tax procedures and the reduction of red tape.

Lázár said we must find the reasons behind Hungary’s deteriorating competitiveness. If we compare the country to other V4 member states Hungary is on a par with Slovakia, whereas the Czech Republic and especially Poland are more competitive.