Ágnes Molnár: The number of tenders submitted in the framework of of the New Széchenyi Plan is growing day after day2011. július 22.
So far 5,500 applications have been submitted based on the calls for tenders of the New Széchenyi Plan, amounting to a resource need of HUF 720 billion.
People are profiting from the tenders of the New Széchenyi Plan: from the opportunity to find resources for their developments, announced Ágnes Molnár, State Secretary for Development Policy (Ministry of National Development) in the programme ‘Rájátszás’ of Hír TV on 20 July 2011. The interview reveals that the number of tenders submitted keeps growing day after day. This is backed up also by the fact that 300 new tenders were submitted for evaluation within a week.
The State Secretary also reported that the opportunity that was not provided by the socialist government during the past 8 years for small, medium-sized and family enterprises has now been reinstituted. From the 5,500 tenders more than 3,000 are aimed at business development. How many of them will actually receive support is depending on how many of them fulfil the eligibility criteria announced. Results are reflected also by the indices, since compared to the need of HUF 720 billion, grant decisions have already been made in the case of as much as 1500 tenders. This means that resources in the amount of more than one billion HUF have been offered since the launch of the New Széchenyi Plan.
We made a comparison between the past three years and our one year and we have to say that these indices have changed significantly compared to the period of the past 3 years of the socialist government. Compared to the past three years the number of payments has doubled. This is a fantastic result. At the same time the number of grant contracts has also increased significantly.
Perhaps the most important index showing how the development system has been accelerated and how well it functions is that during the previous three years – from 2007 to 2010 – the socialist government allocated HUF 22 billion of resources on a monthly basis, and we could achieve an increase of 2.5–3 times in the monthly volume. This means that resources in the amount of HUF 65 billion are flowing out of the system. Thus, while during the previous three years the monthly resource outflow was HUF 22 billion, now it has increased to HUF 65 billion. On average this means a weekly resource allocation of HUF 15 billion, underlined the State Secretary.
The first decision made by the government was to make the supporting of business development happen, since the economy cannot be moved forward without small and medium-sized enterprises. Unfortunately, so far developments in Hungary have been realised in a rather scattered manner, based on individual ideas. During the past year we tried to organise the directions into a strategically based framework. However, this is not sufficient as regards the future, and we are already preparing for the European funding period after 2013, when it will be possible to win resources only through intended, programme- and strategy-based planning. This is the only way to spend the resources in a sustainable and expedient way, and this is the only way it should be done, added Ágnes Molnár.