http://www.realdeal.hu/ en Copyright 2010 Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:32:14 +0100 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Gross wages in Hungary rose 6.5pc in twelve months in January after no change yr/yr in December 2009, the Central Statistical Office (KSH) reported on Friday. Business sector gross wages rose 5.2pc yr/yr in January and public sector gross wages rose 8.9pc. Net wages rose 12.9pc in twelve months in January. Real wages were up 6.1pc yr/yr in January, calculating with a January CPI of 6.4pc, KSH said, noting that the rise reflects taxation changes and the payment of the first part of an annual wage supplement in the public sector. Gross wages rose 0.5pc, net wages rose 1.7pc and real wages fell 2.4pc last year. http://www.realdeal.hu/20100319/hungarys-gross-wages-up-65-yearonyear-in-january http://www.realdeal.hu/20100319/hungarys-gross-wages-up-65-yearonyear-in-january people auth_econews ksh wages Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:32:14 +0100 The government is to officially apply to the European Union for a three-year extension of the moratorium on land purchases by foreigners in Hungary, Government Spokesman Domokos Szollar told MTI on Friday. Mr Szollar said the government confirmed at last week's cabinet meeting its intention to officially submit an application to extend the moratorium and has authorised Minister of Agriculture Jozsef Graf to conduct the necessary talks with the relevant ministries and industry organisations. The consultations are scheduled to start on Monday. The moratorium is set to expire in 2011. http://www.realdeal.hu/20100319/govt-to-officially-apply-for-extension-of-landpurchase-moratorium http://www.realdeal.hu/20100319/govt-to-officially-apply-for-extension-of-landpurchase-moratorium tax/red tape auth_econews jozsef graf politics property: countryside Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:31:33 +0100 Minister in charge of the prime minister's office Csaba Molnar on Thursday inaugurated a HUF 4.8bn water park in Hajduszoboszlo (NE Hungary). Some HUF 2.25bn in European Union and state funding supported the project which nearly doubled the size of the city's spa to 29,000 square metres. Almost a hundred people will work at the water park. http://www.realdeal.hu/20100319/city-in-ne-hungary-inaugurates-ft-48-billion-water-park http://www.realdeal.hu/20100319/city-in-ne-hungary-inaugurates-ft-48-billion-water-park property auth_econews property: countryside property: hotels and resorts Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:29:54 +0100 The European Commission on Thursday said it decided to refer a case concerning Hungary's VAT legislation to the Court of Justice after the country failed to take timely action to change the law. The Hungarian VAT legislation grants taxable persons the option to choose between carrying forward their excess VAT (which results from deductible VAT exceeding payable VAT in a tax period) to the next tax period, or immediately claiming a refund for it. However, the reimbursement of excess VAT cannot be claimed on the basis of input VAT charged on a purchase that has not yet been paid for by the taxable person. As a result, taxable persons whose tax returns consistently show "excesses", are de facto obliged to carry forward the excess input VAT into the following tax period, the Commission said. The regime infringes that part of the VAT Directive which states that where for a given tax period, the amount of deductions exceeds the amount of VAT due, member states may either make a refund or allow the carry over of the excess VAT forward to the following period, under the conditions which they shall determine, the Commission said. http://www.realdeal.hu/20100319/european-commission-refers-hungary-vat-case-to-court-of-justice http://www.realdeal.hu/20100319/european-commission-refers-hungary-vat-case-to-court-of-justice tax/red tape auth_econews european union vat Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:29:19 +0100 Pannon GSM, Hungary's second-biggest mobile communications service provider, is taking the name of its parent company Telenor, Pannon GSM CEO Anders Jensen said at a press conference on Thursday. The name change will take place over the next three months, Mr Jensen said, answering a question. Pannon GSM's operating costs were HUF 54bn in 2009, but the unit will make cost savings of HUF 3bn-4bn in 2010, he said. Some of this money will be spent on the name change, he added. Telenor has owned a stake in Pannon GSM since its establishment in 1994. Later, it became the company's sole owner. Telenor has about 174m subscribers world wide. http://www.realdeal.hu/20100319/pannon-gsm-to-take-name-of-parent-telenor http://www.realdeal.hu/20100319/pannon-gsm-to-take-name-of-parent-telenor company news media/marketing anders jensen auth_econews pannon gsm telecoms telenor Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:28:43 +0100 State-owned intercity bus company Volanbusz has started a renovation and expansion of its end station in the north of the capital at a cost of HUF 400m, of which half will come from European Union and state funding, Volanbusz strategy director Maria Lauko said on Thursday. After the expansion, passenger numbers are expected to rise 10pc from the current 8,000-10,000 a day. The number of bus stops at the station will rise from 7 to 10. Currently about 500 buses stop there every day. Buses will use a temporary station for three months from March 27. http://www.realdeal.hu/20100319/volanbusz-starts-ft-400-million-expansion-of-budapest-station http://www.realdeal.hu/20100319/volanbusz-starts-ft-400-million-expansion-of-budapest-station property auth_econews property: logistics transport travel and tourism volan Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:28:05 +0100 Majority Austrian-owned Alphapark on Thursday opened its second shopping centre in Hungary, in the city of Keszthely, built at a cost of HUF 2.2bn. About 85pc of the 15,000-square-metre rentable area of the shopping centre has been leased. The biggest tenant is do-it-yourself shop OBI, taking up an area of almost 7,000 square metres. Alphapark opened a shopping centre in the Hungarian city of Sopron at the end of 2007. It expanded the centre in the summer of 2008. http://www.realdeal.hu/20100319/alphapark-opens-ft-22-billion-shopping-center-in-keszthely http://www.realdeal.hu/20100319/alphapark-opens-ft-22-billion-shopping-center-in-keszthely property alphapark auth_econews obi property: countryside property: retail Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:27:23 +0100 Hungary's main opposition Fidesz gave warning on Thursday that Hungary's budget deficit could reach the full-year target by the end of April. Mihaly Varga, the party's deputy chairman, said that the warning was given by a fact-finding committee set up under his supervision earlier this week. The committee met with 29 economists who last year sharply criticised the 2010 budget in an open letter sent to the prime minister. Finance Minister Peter Oszko said the calculations were mistaken and the ministry expected the budget deficit to come in just above 75 percent of the year-end target in January-April. The government's budget deficit target for 2010 is 3.8 percent of gross domestic product. http://www.realdeal.hu/20100319/deficit-could-reach-fullyear-target-by-april-says-fidesz-official http://www.realdeal.hu/20100319/deficit-could-reach-fullyear-target-by-april-says-fidesz-official macro auth_mti mihaly varga peter oszko politics Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:26:48 +0100 The European Commission has launched an investigation into Hungary's trading of carbon-dioxide quotas, an EC official told Financial Times Deutschland Online on Thursday. Hungary's main opposition Fidesz set up a fact-finding committee last week to determine whether the Environment Ministry has broken the law in its trading of the carbon credits. Hungary's carbon units have turned up in trading at European carbon markets last week, causing disruption and eventually a halt in trading of the credits on two bourses. The Environment Ministry said last Thursday it had signed a contract to sell 2 million tonnes of the country's CO2 emissions quota in a transaction expected to bring in 4 billion forints (EUR 15m). The ministry said it sold the units to a company which then resold them to a London-based firm, and the end-user was a Japanese buyer. It is still not known however how some one thousand of Hungarian carbon units could have ended up on the Parisien Bluenext market. http://www.realdeal.hu/20100319/brussels-to-probe-hungary-ministry-sale-of-carbon-units http://www.realdeal.hu/20100319/brussels-to-probe-hungary-ministry-sale-of-carbon-units macro auth_mti environment european union fidesz international politics Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:20:02 +0100 Houses abandoned by their foreign owners in Southwestern Hungary are being invaded by rats, blighting the surrounding villages, writes penzcentrum.hu. According to the portal, around the middle of the last decade numerous houses and lots in Somogy County's picturesque Koppányvölgy valley were purchased by Austrian, German, Dutch and Swiss nationals. While some of these foreigners stayed and even assimilated, many have since cut and run, allowing vermin to take their place.]]> http://www.realdeal.hu/20100318/furor-as-fleeing-foreigners-leave-hungarian-homes-to-the-rats http://www.realdeal.hu/20100318/furor-as-fleeing-foreigners-leave-hungarian-homes-to-the-rats observer property property: countryside property: residential travel and tourism Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:00:43 +0100 Hungary has been ranked 22nd among the 27 EU members in terms of innovation in a survey by the European Commission. "Hungary is in the group of 'moderate innovators' with an innovation performance well below the EU27 average but a rate of improvement above that of the EU27," the Commission said in a statement for the release of the European Innovation Scoreboard 2009 (EIS), a ranking compiled each year since 2001. Hungary is relatively strong, compared to its average performance, in the economic success of innovation in employment, exports and sales, but it is weak in the areas of intellectual property rights (IPR) generated in the innovation process and balance of payments from technology, as well as in terms of the number of firms that have introduced innovations onto the market or within their organisations, covering technological and non-technological innovations, the Commission said. Over the past five years, the availability of financing for innovation projects and the support of governments for innovation activities has narrowed, and the number of companies introducing innovations has dropped, particularly because of a big fall in venture capital, according to the survey. http://www.realdeal.hu/20100318/hungary-near-bottom-of-eu-innovation-ranking http://www.realdeal.hu/20100318/hungary-near-bottom-of-eu-innovation-ranking macro media/marketing auth_econews business trends fdi it Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:40:42 +0100 Hungarian telecommunications company Magyar Telekom and U.S. computer-networking company Cisco Systems agreed on Tuesday to establish a joint, HUF 50m (EUR 190,058) innovation center in Budapest, the business daily Napi Gazdasag reported on Wednesday. The innovation center, which will focus on development and testing of IP network solutions and virtual data-center technology for corporate users, will open at the beginning of the summer at the location of Magyar Telekom's system-integrations unit, KFKI. Magyar Telekom and Cisco will split the cost of the investment evenly. Magyar Telekom President-CEO Christopher Mattheisen told the newspaper that the center's initial developments would likely be introduced to Hungary's business-communications market this year. http://www.realdeal.hu/20100318/magyar-telekom-and-cisco-to-establish-joint-innovation-center http://www.realdeal.hu/20100318/magyar-telekom-and-cisco-to-establish-joint-innovation-center media/marketing auth_econews cisco system it magyar telekom Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:37:42 +0100 The forint strengthened to nearly a 15-month high on Wednesday's interbank market, trading at 261.43 against the euro shortly before 6 p.m., compared to a Tuesday-afternoon rate of 263.87. The forint last firmed past 262 against the euro during the final week of 2008. On Monday, the forint transcended the strong side of the 265-276 range in which it had been trading against the euro since August 2009. Dealers say that a pledge on Tuesday from the finance ministers of the eurozone countries to provide financially besieged Greece with loans, if needed, has mitigated fears among traders that a domino effect might sweep through the zone's periphery, thus providing the forint with a boost. Dealers add that traders have, moreover, concluded that some central and eastern European countries, including Hungary, have greater growth potential than some of their eurozone peers. The dollar commanded 189.98 forints on Wednesday morning, compared to a Tuesday-afternoon rate of 191.80. http://www.realdeal.hu/20100318/forint-strengthens-to-15month-high-against-euro http://www.realdeal.hu/20100318/forint-strengthens-to-15month-high-against-euro macro auth_econews forex forint monetary policy Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:34:47 +0100 Hungary's construction output dropped 13.5pc yr/yr in January after a 6.2pc drop in December according to both adjusted and unadjusted figures, the Central Statistics Office (KSH) said on Thursday. Seasonally adjusted output fell 12.3pc after a rise in December. Commenting the drop KSH noted that January output in the sector is about 60pc of the monthly average and January was more wet and cold than usual. Output in the building construction segment was down a sharp 21.0pc yr/yr from an already low base a year earlier, and fell a seasonally adjusted 12.5pc from December. Civil engineering output rose 1.2pc yr/yr after decreases in the previous two months. January output in the segment fell 9.4pc from December according to seasonally adjusted figures. Except for March and June, construction output fell yr/yr each month of last year. Full-year output was down 4.3pc. http://www.realdeal.hu/20100318/construction-sector-output-down-135-in-january http://www.realdeal.hu/20100318/construction-sector-output-down-135-in-january macro property auth_econews business trends construction industry Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:28:36 +0100 The government decided last week to introduce stricter rules for calculating the "total cost of borrowing" (thm) indicator used by Hungarian lenders, government spokesman Domokos Szollar said at a press conference on Wednesday. Lenders will be required to include third-party costs, such as broker fees, when calculating the indicator from June 11, Mr Szollar said. http://www.realdeal.hu/20100318/govt-decides-on-stricter-rules-banks-lending-calculations http://www.realdeal.hu/20100318/govt-decides-on-stricter-rules-banks-lending-calculations tax/red tape auth_econews banking industry politics Thu, 18 Mar 2010 09:36:03 +0100