Economics: And then the government finally came to the minds of educators

While the worst-than-ever numbers come from the epidemic, with the number of victims, those in hospital, those receiving treatment with a ventilator and new infections reaching their peak, the government decided to change the restrictions, albeit with a turn. They argued with the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Tuesday, and on Friday the announcement came: if 2.5 million people are vaccinated (at least that’s the first dose), all stores can open, with one customer for every 10 square meters, until half past ten at night, for services, the regulation will return before March 8, and kindergartens and schools will open on April 19, for which the vaccination of teachers will begin in the month of April.

The vice president of the Vasas Trade Union Confederation has called for non-vital factories to be closed due to the numerous infections, while the vice president of the National Federation of Employers and Manufacturers says there may not be many problems at some plants.

Even before the announcements, we summarized which sectors suffered the most from the crisis by analyzing the number of people who lost their jobs and the version of the survivors’ wages. It also shows the numbers: Most companies have tried to save by laying off young unskilled workers, and government subsidies for job protection are good at fighting fires at best.

There were only two countries in the European Union in 2019 that would have spent proportionally less on health care than Hungary: Latvia and Cyprus. Spending as a percentage of GDP is 4.5%, the lowest level in Hungary since 1995, when Eurostat started keeping statistics; of course, GDP also increased, so expenditures increased numerically. The result of many years of underfunding is, among other things, a chronic labor shortage.

Due to the epidemic, by 2020, between a quarter and a third more money was spent on healthcare, with most of it going in part to buying surplus assets. It also turned out this week that hospital debt was almost HUF 23 billion, in February alone the debt increased by 3.4 billion.

On the curve, Magyar Nemzeti Bank expects pre-economic growth and skyrocketing inflation. The central bank has become more optimistic than it was a couple of months ago: economic growth of 4 to 6 percent is expected this year. According to the explanation, the optimism is justified by the fact that the Hungarian economy performed better than expected in late 2020, “indicating the rapid resilience of the Hungarian economy”, and the engine of growth is provided by the household consumption.

They also looked at crisis management in 2020, as they wrote, with the government spending $ 5.8 trillion on the epidemic and crisis, but a quarter of that was just redistribution. Within epidemic spending, the government spent less on labor protection.

Image of the week: the visual plan of what Örs vezér tere will look like if the metro is connected to HÉV.

Even the leaders of the pro-government county chambers of commerce would attempt to execute a bill that would direct the full amount of the contribution from the chamber of regional chambers to the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry headed by László Parragh. We know that there was strong personalization between László Parragh, president of the national chamber, and Elek Nagy, director of the Budapest Chamber of Industry (BKIK), at the MKIK board meeting.

Given that 40% of the annual contribution of approximately 4.3 billion HUF is made in the central region, the biggest victims of the amendment would be the chambers belonging to it, mainly the industrial chamber of the capital.

The interest-free quick restart loan, also proposed by the Hungarian government and Chamber of Commerce and Industry, is only available to those whose full year 2019 was profitable. This also means that start-ups will have to fend for themselves in the crisis.

In addition, since a fully profitable year is required as of January 1, 2019, even companies that have already had 12 profitable months and only started operations in 2019 will not be eligible for aid. Many are also not eligible for wage subsidies because they are entrepreneurs. Magyar Fejlesztési Bank responded to the criticism: “the aim of the program is to support the restart of companies that were demonstrably viable before the spread of the Covid-19 epidemic in Hungary, have been operating for more than a year, have been operating in a loss and the related security measures had a particularly negative impact on its management, so in its case it is necessary to take into account the operation of the year 2019 ”.

In hindsight, the Finance Ministry revealed that the country would partially cover its new HUF 500 billion air defense system with a loan. The interest rate is in order, but the exchange rate risk is there; We determine this after reviewing the details of the agreement.

But the spirit of the Gripen acquisitions haunted him anyway. There was a good chance that not only were strictly military considerations taken into account when choosing the NASAMS air defense system, but they could also think of other forms of cooperation. Hungary itself buys the air defense system from the Norwegian company Kongsberg Defense & Aerospace, but the missiles used in it are American AMRAAMs from Raytheon.

The amount of food waste has not only decreased since the beginning of the epidemic, it has even increased. As restaurants are closed, it is primarily merchants and consumers who are responsible for waste, and the proportion of packaged waste has also increased.

We seek answers with the help of experts on what to do with this situation. More and more stores are selling discounted products, and in Western Europe we can see countless examples of vegetables and fruits “popping” onto store shelves and reborn as juices or sauces. And what food waste is no longer fit for human consumption, then biogas production is now the best recovery.