This year’s latest growth report of Hungarian National Bank was presented on June 14 on the press conference organized by the central bank. Endre Jóföldi, CEO of Precognox, was also invited to the event, as the owner of one of the domestic companies that was included in Financial Times’ 2023 FT1000 list containing the fastest growing companies of Europe.
After the introduction speech of the vice-president of the Central Bank, the market trends of the last period, the business correlations and aspects related to growth were presented at the event. Topics such as the innovation ecosystem, entrepreneurship, business attitude, and venture capital investment were also discussed.
The growth report is available on the website of the MNB.
Market competition, the prime mover of competitiveness
During the presentation, the audience was able to learn, among other things, that most of the surveyed businesses agree with the statement that competition really encourages competitiveness and innovation. Despite this, the risk-taking willingness of Hungarian companies is still very low, which is absolutely necessary to change, since innovation-driven companies (typically taking greater business risks) are characterized by exponential development instead of linear. And this significantly affects market competition, which is the prime mover of competitiveness.
“Hidden champions”
There are currently more than a thousand innovation-driven companies in Hungary, which contribute significantly to the growth of the domestic economy. Only 15 of these are located in Somogy county, including our company.
During the presentation, these 1,100 companies were called “hidden champions”. They account for less than 0.3 percent of all Hungarian companies, but at the same time account for 13 percent of exports and more than 22 percent of growth. Regarding the business scopes, there are a total of 63 hidden champions dealing with software development in Hungary.
All this emerged from the research that the Hungarian National Bank prepared in cooperation with the National Research, Development and Innovation Office and the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office and which was presented by András Balatoni, director of the central bank.
Growth panel discussion
The highlight of the event was the round table discussion focusing on innovation.
Participants of the conversation:
- Dr. István Peták (founding CEO, Oncompass)
- Endre Jóföldi, (CEO, co-founder, Precognox)
- Dr. Charaf Hassan (Dean of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics of BME – Budapest University of Technology and Economics)
- Imre Csuhaj-Varjú (presidential adviser, MNB – Hungarian National Bank)
The source of the videos and images in the article is the Hungarian National Bank’s YouTube channel.
