Secretary of State: a regional development fund will be created

By: Trademagazin Date: 2023. 11. 07. 11:07

The government is creating a regional development fund for the implementation of urban and catch-up developments, the state secretary responsible for regional development said on Tuesday in Siófok, at a professional forum.

Gábor Mayer added in his presentation at the meeting of mayors and clerks of the Somogy county that regional development offices will be established in the county seats in 2024, and the fund will be replenished from Hungarian sources in 2025.
He said that the fund is needed because functional urban areas need independent development programs.

He indicated that the county programs, the Operational Program for Territorial and Urban Development (TOP) and TOP Plusz, operate within an unchanged framework.

The state secretary pointed out that the significant economic development of the past ten years has not reduced the differences between certain regions, or between Budapest and the countryside, that the big cities do not “pull” the backward regions, but suck the population. The country’s migration balance over the past thirty years in the agglomeration of the capital, Central Hungary and Central Transdanubia is positive, while the population of county seats and medium-sized cities is decreasing. At the same time, a significant part of Hungary belongs to the functional catchment area of cities – he noted.