More money for community marketing

The possibilities for community agricultural marketing are enhanced by professional associations being able to utilise sources from their membership for their activities. Hungarian Community Agricultural Marketing Centre (AMC) has a HUF 1,5 billion budget for 2007. Its purpose is to help agricultural producers find a market for their products using indirect forms of assistance.
– What is going to change this year? – we asked the managing director.
– 2007 will be a turning point in the history of AMC, because we will have more financing available to support product career programs. In previous years we have received a lot of criticism for spending too much on OMÉK and Foodapest. These amounts will only account for a fifth of our budget in 2007 and will be 20 per cent less than in 2005. This year, we will have HUF 275 million for product career projects and money is going to be used as suggested by professional associations.
– Will older projects be continued this year?
AMC will continue to be responsible for the Excellent Hungarian Food trade mark with an allocated budget of HUF 150 million. At the moment, there are 213 domestic products entitled to use this trade mark, which is guarantee of excellent quality. Another major project, Traditional Flavours-Regions (HÍR) will also continue with a budget of HUF 20 million. We will also regard foreign sales promotion activities for fruit, palinka, bio-products and poultry as a priority. In total, HUF 450 million will be allocated to supporting Hungarian exhibitors’ participation in international exhibitions, while HUF 115 million will be available for domestic exhibitions.
– Will the new budget be sufficient for so many tasks?
In addition to our own resources, we expect professional associations and government institutions to make contributions to specific projects.