Péter Szijjártó: it gives Hungary extraordinary strength that its agriculture produces double the domestic consumption

(Photo: PIxabay)

At the project closing event of Nagyhegyesi Takarmány Kft., the portfolio manager reported that the pet food production capacity of the family-owned company, which exports to 40 countries, has doubled to approximately 100,000 tons per year following the HUF 900 million development. The project was supported by the state with HUF 270 million, thus contributing to the creation of thirty new jobs. In his speech, he touched on the difficulties of recent years, emphasizing that the crisis situation clearly showed the importance of the food industry. “It is not an exaggeration to say in the light of recent years that a country’s strength is largely determined by its food industry capacities and food industry capabilities,” he said. “The fact that Hungarian agriculture can produce twice as much, and the Hungarian food industry can process twice as much of everything we consume here in Hungary, obviously gives us Hungarians extraordinary strength,” he added.

The food industry is already internationally competitive

Péter Szijjártó emphasized that the food industry, which employs 135,000 people, has now become an innovative and internationally competitive sector, whose growth could not be stopped even by serious challenges. He underlined: the fact that a large number of food industry companies benefited from the government’s investment incentives, even during the coronavirus epidemic, also plays a significant role in this. As an example, he mentioned that the production value of the domestic agriculture and food industry before the pandemic, in 2020, was HUF 3,800 billion, and last year it was HUF 6,500 billion. “Obviously, this could not have turned out this way, if they had not been created, the investments would not have been continuously created,” he stated, and he also touched on the fact that although Hungary is only 95th in the world in terms of population, it is in 9th place in the ranking of exports of canned pet food stands, after exports in this area were worth around 757 million euros last year.

The minister also spoke about the fact that in the past three years, the world economy has been completely turned upside down twice in an unprecedented way.

As he said, the whole of Europe is paying the price of the war in Ukraine, the closer a country is to the conflict, the more so. He then emphasized that despite the extremely difficult circumstances, the Hungarian economy was able to achieve records last year, because the peak of investments, employment and exports also fell. According to his words, investments are the recipe for success, as investments create jobs, and work becomes livelihood and economic performance. “Even in the current difficult circumstances, our clear objective and expectation of ourselves is that we can keep the Hungarian economy on a growth path,” he concluded.

MTI