Gender Equality National Report Hungary - European-microfinance ...

The LEA network has developed its integrated enterprise promotion program, in which there
are several micro-finance programs building on each other, in addition to training and
counselling programs.
Although the performance of the SME sector and the proportion of micro-enterprises that
employ several people have increased in the past years, it can be said in general that the
performance (i.e. sales), capital force and assets of Hungarian micro-enterprises significantly
lag behind the average of the EU 15 countries.
In order to reduce the finance deficit, which has reached a record high level in recent years in
Hungary, the government accepted a convergence program - with approval from Brussels –
which increased the not-so-insignificant burdens of both the population and the
entrepreneurial sector slightly further. Meanwhile the planned and initiated reform measures
generated social tensions – hopefully also temporarily. In these circumstances it became
particularly important and has always been in the basic interest of Hungary to give effective
help to the SME sector, which lacks capital, resources and adequate entrepreneurial culture,
for the sake of its reinforcement and development.
In the government’s economic development policy greater emphasis must be put on SME
promotion programs including the indirect ways of enterprise support as well as the
development of the relaying, service providing institution and the harmonization of its
operation.
Perhaps an unprecedented historical opportunity for this could be the significant funds
provided by the European Union in its budgetary period of 2007-2013, the efficient use of
which is in the basic interest of Hungary. Using this, not only is it necessary to improve the
possibilities of small enterprises to access outer resources but for the sake of long-term
sustainability the institution of enterprise promotion must also be reinforced. With the
elimination of the existing parallelisms, and with more efficient management and finance, it
ought to be made more co-operative, specialized and professional.
All in all, there is quite a wide range of enterprises and private individuals with the chance of
self-employment in Hungary, whose development would be necessary and possible in social
and/or economic aspects but whose needs for development resources are not yet being
satisfied by money market actors. This range of enterprises will be the potential target group
of state-supported microfinance programs for a long time.
The so-called JEREMIE program funds allocated from the resources of the Structural Funds
can signify a great opportunity to reduce the micro and small enterprises’ lack of resources.
The members of the Hungarian Microfinance Network, the local enterprise agencies in the
counties and the capital city ® (LEAs) - for the first time in Hungary and among the first in
Europe - started their micro-finance activities with professional and financial support from the
PHARE SME program in 1992.
The loans totalling more than HUF 45 billion (i.e. ca. EUR 180 million) provided in over 26
thousand contracts can be considered a remarkable achievement.
Social acceptance of female-owned enterprises is average: it is not the reason why there are
not more women’s enterprises; it is due to their family roles (pregnancy, child-care,
household chores) women have different opportunities. There is a good day-nursery service
in Hungary; however, about 30% of women cannot start their own business because they do
not have access to this service.
According to some research, finance is not a major problem for entrepreneurs, but this is
misleading. However the competition among banks is getting stronger, 80% of enterprises
operate without loans. It is especially problematic that only a fraction of enterprises receive
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