Hungary’s competitiveness improves, outperforms Visegrád Group

Hungary’s competitiveness has risen to take place 17 among European Union countries, over the average of Visegrád Group members, Ákos Szalai of the National Bank of Hungary (NBH) told a press conference on Tuesday, presenting the NBH’s Competitiveness Report 2022.

The report uses 160 indicators to gain a comprehensive and objective image of Hungary’s competitiveness, Szalai said. The report mostly leans on 2021 data, he noted.

At the same time, NBH said a switch to a growth model based on sustainable, quality factors from one founded on quantity will require a “competitiveness turnaround”.

Hungary is ahead of the European Union average in a number of gauges of quantity, but he said the country has “much room for improvement” when it comes to indicators of quality. While the local labour market is close to full employment, gauges of labour productivity are low in EU comparison, and although the investment rate is high, the share of investments in software or communications is low. The high complexity of exports indicates a competitive export sector, but the value-added of those products is low, the NBH said.