Tractor buyers didn’t waste their time

In Hungary 2014 was a record year in tractor buying: according to data from the Hungarian Leasing Association, in the first seven months of the year farmers purchased 3,201 tractors, 71 percent more than a year before. Slow tractor sales were up 37 percent at 1,446 and 1,775 ordinary models were sold – twice as much as in the base period. There were three reasons behind the increased demand: 1. 2012 and 2013 were good years for crop and livestock farmers alike, 2. through various grant schemes (e.g. ÁTK 5) farmers could get 35-60 percent or 25-percent funding for tractor buying; 3. MNB’s Funding for Growth Scheme with its 2.5-percent interest rate loans. As a matter of fact the Hungarian tractor market underwent great changes in the last few years. By 2013 the agricultural machinery stock reduced from the 2005 level in most machine types, but the capacity of machines got bigger. The number of tractors fell by 6 percent in the examined period to 120,000, but tractors’ performance bettered by 12 percent to 10 million horsepower. In the first three quarters of 2014 agricultural machinery was sold for HUF 126 billion, which constitutes a 59-percent rise in value from the first three quarters of 2013.