Trust and investment

At the end of the Business Days conference in Tapolca I asked myself the question: Who is going to invest in the food industry? Just before the conference the government expressed their opinion that from the key industries, it is only the food and retail sectors where they were unable to get the desired Hungarian majority ownership.

It is needless to say that the government hardly sent any representatives to the conference in Tapolca. At the Business Days a discount supermarket chain reported two-digit sales growth – no wonder, because they are investing; not only in building new stores and purchasing goods, but also in human resources. They are hopeful that the business environment will be stable.

All that we, who work in production, can see is that basically there are no investors. Why? Because those with the money to invest don’t trust the economic environment. It is a shame, because there are positive examples as well: this year Hungary became Europe’s biggest sunflower seed producer. My company built a new production line and we even went ‘greener’ by this – because our Czech partners trust us.