NGM: lower interest rates boosted businesses’ investment appetite

By: Trademagazin Date: 2025. 08. 06. 11:33

The lower interest rates introduced in the Széchenyi Card Program have dramatically boosted the investment appetite of Hungarian businesses: in the first seven months of the year, banks participating in the program accepted 10,081 investment loan applications worth HUF 310.7 billion. This is 34 percent more in number and 18 percent more in terms of the requested loan amount than a year earlier, the Ministry of National Economy (NGM) announced in its statement on Tuesday.

It was stated that the program significantly contributes to strengthening the competitiveness of domestic SMEs and stimulating economic growth, and a key role in this is played by the fact that the interest rate on investment loans has been reduced from 5 to 3 percent per year in two stages since the launch of the Sándor Demján Program in November 2024.

In the statement, the NGM wrote: Hungary’s resources do not belong in Ukraine, but with Hungarian families and domestic businesses! Despite pressure from Brussels, the government is doing everything it can to increase the productivity of Hungarian small and medium-sized enterprises, promote their growth and support their investments.

In the first seven months of the year, enterprises took advantage of the favorable conditions to an unprecedented extent, especially in the case of investment-oriented schemes. The progress in July was particularly spectacular: the interest in investment loans nearly tripled compared to the same month of the previous year in terms of both the number of requests and their value.

“The data for July this year show that the decline caused by summer seasonality has not occurred this year, and favorable interest rates are able to keep the economy moving even during the usual cucumber season,”

– the statement quoted Richárd Szabados, State Secretary for the Development of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises and Technology.

The outstanding star of the month was the Agrár Széchenyi Beruházási Hitel MAX+: its requested loan amount of HUF 5.1 billion is double that of June, while the number of transactions also increased by 26 percent. In addition, a 3 percent increase in the number of units was recorded for the Széchenyi Mikrohitel MAX+ and Széchenyi Lízing MAX+ products compared to June.