HungaryTrends – The week in business and finance

See below main business and financial news from the previous week:

BUDAPEST AND SOPRON AMONG THE CHEAPEST EUROPEAN CITIES

The Budget Your Trip travel portal has compiled a Travel Cost Index, ranking the most visited European cities by order of how much one tourist spends there a day on average. Two Hungarian cities are featured, Budapest and Sopron, although the Hungarian travelling website, Turizmus.com, warns readers to take the ranking with a pinch of salt. Read more HERE.

INCREASE IN DEMAND FOR NEWLY BUILT APARTMENTS IN BUDAPEST

Experts say that real estate investors in Budapest tend to look for newly built apartments to rent rather than renovating old apartments and selling them for a high price, which used to be the trend in the capital. Read more HERE.

CONVERGENCE PROGRAMME SHOWS STEADY GROWTH AROUND 4 PC IN COMING YEARS

Hungary’s GDP growth is set to stay around 4 percent in the coming years, according to the country’s latest Convergence Programme posted on the website of the European Commission. The programme puts GDP growth at 4.1 percent in 2019, 4.0 percent in 2020, 4.2 percent in 2021 and 4.1 percent in 2022. The projections for 2019-2021 are 0.3-0.6 percentage points over those in the previous year’s convergence programme.

ORBÁN BRUSHES OFF CONCERNS OVER DEBATE ON EC PROPOSAL

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that neither Hungary nor any other country in Central Europe has to fear a debate over the rule of law or the European Union budget. Hungary, especially, has nothing to worry about when it comes to the rule of law, because the country underwent a full review in 2013 and “we have our certificate saying that the rule of law is in order”. The European Commission earlier proposed establishing a mechanism that would link payouts of EU funding to respect for the rule of law in member states.