The robust recovery of inbound tourism greatly contributed to the positive tourism results in July. Compared to the same month last year, nearly a fifth more foreign guests, totalling 900,000, overnighted in Hungary.
For the government, the successful fight against inflation is a key issue as it aims to restore the previous trend of continuous wage growth, disrupted by the protracted war and the misguided sanctions.
Tamás Kádár proudly announced that the total attendance of Sziget this year was estimated at over 420,000. He added that although it is less than last year, the company cannot complain.
Government spokesperson Alexandra Szentkirályi noted on public radio that inflation decreased to 17.6 per cent in July, representing a 2.5 per cent decrease compared to the previous month, and a 0.9 per cent decrease in food prices. On an annual basis, the combined effect of multiple government measures has practically cut the inflation of food prices in half, she stressed.
The Sziget Festival will last six days, until 15 August, on the Óbuda Island in Budapest. Performers from sixty-two countries will arrive at approximately forty venues, and the audience will come from over a hundred countries.
Spread across 76 hectares, this year’s festival was set up in three weeks. The maximum daily capacity is 90,000 people, including both festival staff and attendees, making Sziget the country’s tenth largest city for the six days of the festival. The main stage was constructed in ten days, with a floor area of over a thousand square metres and a six hundred square metre LED wall serving as its backdrop.
According to the ministry’s statement issued on 4 August, in July the average prices of products in 62 product categories decreased by an average of 7.7 per cent. This reduction was a result of price decreases in 53 product categories within one month. The decrease in food prices had a 0.7 percentage point impact on reducing inflation and a two percentage point impact on reducing food inflation according to the weighting of the shopping basket used by the Central Statistical Office.
To further intensify price competition, the government decided to raise the level of mandatory discounts from ten per cent to at least 15 per cent starting today.
According to the latest data from an online accommodation platform, the current volume of summer bookings in Hungary is still 19 per cent below last year’s record summer, and it falls just below the pre-pandemic level of 2019.
‘There are few Hungarian brands in the entertainment industry like the Sziget Festival, and we will forever be grateful to its founders for creating it. We are planning a grand celebration this year, which also signifies the beginning of a new era for us: we not only want to preserve the legacy of the past 30 years but also lay the foundation for the next 30,’ Tamás Kádár stated at a press conference in May.
The prime minister stressed that the Hungarian government needs to be sharp because multinational companies behave like speculators. Food retail chains raise prices even when there is no reason for it, using high energy costs as a pretext. At the same time, their leaders go to Brussels to complain about the Hungarian government and collude with the Brussels bureaucrats, the PM argued.
Starting from today, the mandatory discount programme has been launched in grocery stores all over the country to make sure Hungarian families have access to basic foodstuffs at affordable prices.
The Hungarian government has implemented measures to protect Hungarian families and businesses against high inflation. As a result, the inflation data in recent months indicate a systematic, continuous, and visible decrease in inflation.
The price monitoring system will come into effect on 1 July, and is expected to contribute to pushing inflation back to single digits.
Carsharing is a simple, user-friendly and cost-effective alternative to owning a personal vehicle. All it requires is a smartphone and a credit or debit card.
To make the process of reducing inflation as strong and significant as possible, all possible tools must be used, they added. For this reason, in collaboration with the government, the Hungarian Competition Authority is establishing an online price monitoring system based on international examples, which contributes to increasing market competition and preventing overpricing.
On Monday morning the first ship carrying 26,000 tonnes of corn left the South Ukrainian port of Odesa. The departure of the ship offers a ray of hope that the food crisis may be addressed soon under the new deal between Moscow and Kyiv.
According to the head of a Bavarian clinic, finding a hospital that can treat you quickly won’t be that easy in the future.
Fuel prices soar across the West and there is no end in sight yet. As the patience of the people toward their helpless governments starts to run dry, there seems to be only one outlier – Hungary.
Hungarian Conservative is a quarterly magazine on contemporary political, philosophical and cultural issues from a conservative perspective.