Economy: And then instead of a strong forint we got another chocolate discount

Public expectations are deteriorating for the fourth month in a row, but the business community already seems to see some light at the end of the tunnel: as many want to hire new people as many would be laid off. At the same time, this is not yet felt in the population’s expectations, as fears of unemployment have intensified, according to the GKI economic index earlier this week. According to this, in general, in October, people felt that their own financial situation was worse than in September, while their ability to save was slightly better.

It is true that 32 thousand people lost their jobs in September, while the average income increased by almost 10 hundred, according to CSO data, and amounted to 260,400 net HUF.

At the same time, the mood of many is unlikely to be improved by the fact that negotiations may come more difficult than ever on the 2021 minimum wages. Although the Ministry of Innovation and Technology announced Wednesday that negotiations were underway , the president of the League of Trade Unions said the next day that “we are facing a critical period, so a decision can be made on the future minimum wage and the guaranteed minimum wage after prolonged negotiations. annual amount ». For this reason, no concrete figures have been announced so far.

However, there is one industry where you really don’t have to worry about this: IT professionals rarely receive a salary below 600,000 net – 40% of senior IT professionals say their income is in the salary range net from 600 to 899,000. Twenty per cent of them can take home between 900 thousand and 1.2 million guilders a month, and 9 per cent of them have a monthly salary of more than 1.2 million. And this also requires flexible working hours, a flat organizational hierarchy, private health insurance, a company car and parking support.

And even some families have to worry about one less problem: starting in January, even the total amount of chocolate can be used to create multi-generational households.

We can safely say that the forint had a rather difficult week: it is true that we wrote on Monday that the forint is comfortable in the position it took the previous week, that is, around 365 euros. He held this for a while, but addressed it several times in the second half of the week, in fact that was when it topped the price of 369 euros.

Still, it approached the all-time low by just a hair: on April 1, a euro cost 369.5 guilders for a short time. The main reason is uncertainty: this is reinforced by the closures due to the coronavirus epidemic, the failure of the negotiations around Brexit and the presidential elections in the United States. In such cases, investors look for safe assets, such as buying gold, euros or dollars, and selling, among other things, florins.

Despite the weakening of the forint, we saw a drop in prices at gas stations, which has not been the case since April.

In any case, Governor György Matolcsy looks further:

A new era is emerging in human history, the era of Eurasia, accelerated by the coronavirus epidemic

– he said in the online conference called Budapest Eurasia Forum 2020. Matolcsy believed that “we are at the beginning of another period of 400 to 500 years” after the end of the Atlantic period.

Contrary to Matolcsy’s usual custom, Mihály Varga, whether direct or not, and then perhaps his memoirs, seemed short-term: “We are working out a three-year budget trajectory, the economy will take so long to get back on its growth trajectory above, “said Parliament. at their Budget Committee meeting on Tuesday. The words of the finance minister are easy to interpret to mean that perhaps even in the 2022 election year, the government will not reduce the general government deficit below three percent. The finance minister has improved relatively quickly on Friday, noting at a conference that lower economic growth is expected in 2021 than before. In 2021, the Hungarian economy may grow by 3.5 to 4 percent compared to 2020, Finance Minister Mihály Varga said at the HBLF conference. This was a surprising comment, as the government had so far expected GDP growth of 4.8 percent by 2021, and the budget was planned that way.

In response to a question, he also pointed out that the Hungarian government intends to spend on the renovation of hospitals, the purchase of machinery and medical care at all, from the new EU recovery fund.

It turns out that this is not the only aid for the Union, the Member States are already receiving 100 million euros for rapid tests from Brussels.

By the way, Varga also reported on other plans this week, like the creation of a Sustainable Economic Whitening Committee.

Tighter regulation of second jobs for healthcare workers in private healthcare could lead to higher prices. The question is primarily whether private care is ready to replace the state; We wrote in our article on Friday that there are not enough doctors for two sectors in Hungary today.

“60-70 percent of doctors also work in private care,” says György Leitner, president of the Primus Association, which brings together twelve private healthcare providers, and says that second-hand work alone does not it is a problem, so far consent is needed. who will issue it, under what conditions and to what extent it will be restrictive.

According to the expert, it is feared that the health worker (because the new law does not only apply to doctors) will be forced to choose: public or private. According to him, the consequence of this will be that “the private sector will absorb some of the doctors.”

Private healthcare, thanks anyway, okay, continues to make billions in profit.

The good news for health is that outdated power generators in hospitals are being replaced by 436 million. The State justifies that the tender was issued because it is essential to replace obsolete aggregators in hospitals to be able to serve those who need intensive care during the coronavirus epidemic, including those who are on the ventilator.

And the strange news about health care is that we have found out: Foreign Affairs has bought so many ventilators that it is now trying to sell the redundant machines. According to the ministry, attempts are being made to sell “machines beyond strategic stocks” and this process is ongoing. When Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó was asked about this, he tried to point out that it was not his decision to sell fans.

The week also revealed that the August 20 fireworks would take place, only the government secretly only postponed it for a year. So everything remains, including the grandiose $ 8 billion budget originally planned and never seen before.

This year’s tenders were won by the state Antenna Hungaria in a restricted procedure and now all that has happened is that the deadlines for the fulfillment of the contracts have been changed to 2021, that is, no new public acquisitions will be issued for the 2021 orders, tasks will be performed by Antenna Hungaria. to provide.

Even if we don’t have to worry about wildfires this year due to fireworks, we should pay attention to discarded batteries, as one study says hundreds of serious fires are caused each year by used batteries that people throw away. trash or separate garbage cans.

There has also been a lot of movement in the business world, for example, eMAG has entered the Hungarian market so much, where it is in the process of merging with Extreme Digital, that it is leaving Poland to strengthen it.

The Rubik’s Cube was also sold, bought for $ 50 million, or about HUF 15 billion, by a Canadian toy factory. Founded in 1994, Spin Master is one of the biggest players in the gaming industry; generated $ 1.58 billion in revenue last year. The news of the acquisition was also commented on by the inventor of the dice game, Ern que Rubik, who said he was excited that Spin Master would fulfill his ideas to take care of the smartest generation of the future through the game. It is not yet known if Ernő Rubik will leave the Rubik brand or to what extent it will participate in the purchase price.

And 4iG finally got the GVH license, so a company that develops artificial intelligence was added. INNObyte is a specialist in contact center services, business intelligence, test automation, artificial intelligence development, database solutions.

MVM also had a good week as the state energy company received permission from the EU, not the competition authority, to buy the largest Czech energy trading company. The acquisition of Ceská republika as (iCR) is no small feat, as the company serves a total of more than 1.6 million retail and corporate clients.

Revolut, on the other hand, probably did not feel that the MNB thought its use was worth caring for, as Revolut transferred its UK service center to domestic customers to a Lithuanian company due to Brexit, thus falling within the purview of the European Union, but at the expense of the company. the money is not protected by the National Deposit Guarantee Fund, the central bank also has no right to act, it can only give advice.

Picture of the week: Hungary’s most expensive hamburger costs 37,990 guilders

It also turned out that the companies of László L. Simon’s wife are still the beneficiaries of state and EU tenders. Now they have just received 135 million guilders, but when Blikk asked him, the wife just said that

It is not very clear on what basis he is applying for the grants obtained legally from two private companies.

The politician himself was also approached, he said he had no information about all this, he did not deal with the finances of the companies. “I did not receive any support, I did not even request it,” he added.

It would be unfair for Lőrinc Mészáros to lose in the shadow of his success as a poet-politician, who of course also could not avoid winning some tenders this week: his multimillion-dollar company won, for example, two drinking water improvement projects in two counties.

All of this is a small amount of money, of course, compared to the 45 billion contract with which the Hungarian company Zuckerberg will build 18 kilometers of railroad tracks.

Fidesz politician István Bajkai cannot complain either, as the company in which he also owns the Fidesz Member of Parliament’s office received a non-refundable state grant of HUF 9 million from the Hungarian Tourism Agency.

And still doing well for Kálmán Rákay, artistically named Philip Rákay, whose company, Norton Consulting Zrt., Paid a dividend of HUF 100 million.

However, it was not a good week for popular discount stores: first Lidl announced that Lidl would recall a Brie cheese due to E. coli contamination, and then Aldi did it with one of its hams due to listeria.

The first store had a 100 gram batch of Nangis Milbona Selection Brie French soft cheese and the second had Hola Serrano ham.