Press News

Budapest, April 26, 2004

On April 26, Elek Straub, Chairman of the German-Hungarian Chamber of Industry and Commerce (GHCIC), and Wolfram Klein, Member of the Acting Chair of the Chamber, propounded the results of this year's report on market trend. Rezzo Schlauch, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Economics and Labor, Germany, as well as Ursula Seiler-Albring, Ambassador of Germany to Hungary, attended the press conference.

Since 1995, GHCIC has yearly interviewed its nearly 1,000 member companies of their own position and outlooks. This year, owing to the cooperation with the French Chamber of Commerce, member companies of chambers of other EU member-states have been involved for the first time. Distribution of the participating companies representing manufacturing, commerce and service sectors is similar to that of German companies involved. In 2004, German investors are looking forward a positive change and definitely expect a higher profit. Hungary, being a target country of investment, still has some features shortly before the accession to the EU, that need to be changed; compared to the competitors, Hungary has slightly lost attractiveness; bureaucracy is still causing problems and available qualified manpower is reducing.

Elek Straub underlined the significance of German companies - "a considerable part of foreign investments implemented in Hungary since 1989 has been made by German companies; over EUR 12 billion have been invested and today, far more than 200,000 people are employed by them. On a yearly average, each company spends HUF 2.55 million for charitable purposes."