Hungary for UK growth
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Last Friday, after four years, I stepped down as the ambassador of Hungary to the Court of St. James’s. I arrived just days before the Brexit referendum — a referendum that, of course, shaped almost everything I did in the role here.
It became apparent that the two priorities for me would be the representation of Hungarians as EU citizens living in the UK, and to help business run smoothly between our two countries. Indeed, with our shared values, our shared commitment to Nato, and shared cultural heritage as fellow beneficiaries of Western civilisation for millennia, it was also a priority for that trade to prosper.
I’m delighted that — “despite Brexit” — the UK is now the fourth largest investor in my home. BP, BT, Tesco, Glaxosmithkline, Vodafone and
others, with whom we founded the UK-Hungarian Business Council, are all reinvesting in their successful operations in our country.
Since 2010, when Hungary’s current government came into power, the economy has become one of the fastest growing in Europe. Last year’s GDP growth of 4.9 per cent outstripped most of our friends on the continent.
Unemployment has fallen from 12 per cent to 3.6 per cent over those years, with around 800,000 new jobs created in a country of 10m.
Hungary has attracted record FDI in recent years, and has joined an exclusive club of nations exporting more than €100bn annually. We now have the most competitive tax system in Europe with a 15 per cent flat personal and nine per cent corporate tax rate — something the rest of Europe could certainly learn from.
As for tourism? Budapest and the wonders of the Hungarian countryside are no surprise to the hundreds of thousands of Brits who have visited.
Perhaps because of our trade links, Hungary has sought to be a pragmatic partner in the Brexit process. We have always made it very clear that we regretted the UK leaving, because it is a huge loss for the union. But we
will continue to be a reliable and
predictable counterpart in the coming turns of this unprecedented and complex process.
And indeed despite those challenges, I believe the UK now stands at the gates of its greatest opportunity for generations. With its economic, security, intelligence, scientific and cultural power and influence on world affairs, the UK can now enter in a truly global phase of her development.
And the British government, businesses and people will surely appreciate like-minded countries and their businesses to be partners in this with them. Hungary has now grown to a point where many Hungarian businesses can enter the global stage and where better do it than in London, the centre of world business.
London will always attract the best minds, sitting at the centre of time zones with the world’s most spoken language as its own. The experience of living and working in London is second to none. Despite coming to the end of my time as ambassador, I will be keeping a base in London as a private citizen and travelling extensively to Hungary and other places to forge business opportunities which will arise from the cooperation of a truly global and independent Britain and the growing and ever more confident central European region.
A wise person once said that a
marriage is not held together by a single chain, but by a thousand silken threads; and that is our partnership with the UK.
Kristof Szalay-Bobrovniczky was Hungarian ambassador to the UK from 2016 to 2020