National
Development Agency

Since the establishment of the NDA, 27 000 projects have been completed countrywide, from which 6 000 served the development of the region of North Hungary. The projects implemented using funds from the European Union as well as Hungarian resources also contributed to the increase in the quality of life of the citizens. The funds available for the period 2007 – 2013 are far from being fully utilised, there are still a number of calls being published and countless project ideas are still waiting for implementation. The NDA proposed several modifications to the regulatory framework to speed up the utilisation of the funds available and also modified its own activities accordingly. Nevertheless, the key to success is in the hand of the developers. Thus, the NDA initiated a technical workshop series of events addressing the most frequently occurring problems and their potential solutions in utilising the assistance available not only in the case of governmental institutions, local governments and non-profit organisations, but also in the case of the economic sector too.

“The events aiming to support the target audience started in Miskolc, will continue in Szeged, Kaposvár, Székesfehérvár, Győr and Debrecen and the final event will be held in Budapest at the end of June. The main objective of the campaign is to maximise the number of invoices submitted by the beneficiaries during the remaining period. We prepared the institutional background; the rest is up to the applicants and developers”, said Zoltán Petykó, president of the NDA.

The greatest difficulty of the beneficiaries is the lack of the required self-contribution, to which the NDA answered by introducing the so-called supplier financing and supplier advance system. These measures made the project implementations smoother, since the beneficiary has to provide only the self-contribution and not the total cost of the project, because the settlement of the invoices is a continuous process during the lifetime of the project. Beside this, the most common problem in utilising the resources is the erroneous payment claims and their late arrival. During the technical workshops, these kinds of problems are addressed by experts such as Gyula E. Barta, the Director General of MAG Zrt. or Dániel Bene, Managing Director of ESZA Non-profit Ltd.

The region of North Hungary has received a HUF 512 billion assistance budget from the EU so far. The popularity of the construction is well demonstrated by the almost 11 000 applications having arrived to the NDA so far and, based on previous experiences, one can say that every second application contains supportable ideas. Through the NDA, the EU funds assisted the implementation of developments such as the Eco-centre of Lake Tisza, the eco-touristic development of the State Forest Train of Lillafüred or the establishment of the new production plant of Robert Bosch Energy Ltd. in Miskolc. The supported projects all increased the competitiveness of the region, supporting the recovery from the economic crisis.

“The Government spent almost HUF 0.5 billion during the last one and half years on strengthening employment, almost HUF 3.5 billion on developing the transportation system and more than HUF 8 billion on science-innovation programmes. The enterprises of the region that benefited most received almost HUF 25 billion in assistance”, said Krisztián Kormány, the Managing Director of NORDA North Hungary Regional Development Agency.  “A number of constructions of the New Széchenyi Plan are still open in the region with the total value of more than HUF 30 billion: amongst others, constructions are available in the area of developing the touristic and economic infrastructure and reconstructing public roads.  Beside these, new constructions are expected to open too”, he added.