The report entitled Doing Business in the European Union 2017: Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, which was presented by Thomas Bender, a head of unit at the European Commission, surveyed the business environments of 22 major cities in Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania.

It focused on five areas: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property and enforcing contracts.

It found that the Hungarian cities involved in the study outperform the EU average in property registration and commercial dispute resolution but lag behind in areas like starting a business or receiving construction permits.

The study surveyed seven Hungarian cities: Budapest, Debrecen, Győr, Miskolc, Pécs, Szeged and Székesfehérvár.

Hungarian cities hold the top spots in four of the five categories in the current study, Bender said. Budapest lags behind the other six Hungarian cities in all five categories, according to the report. The only category in which Hungary trails Bulgaria and Romania is the costs of starting a business, which in Hungary are nearly double the EU average. But Bender said there are five Hungarian cities among the world’s fifteen best at enforcing contracts.

Cecile Fruman, director of trade and competitiveness of the World Bank Group, noted that the organisation’s latest global economic report projects a global economic growth rate of 2.7 percent for 2017. Hungary’s economy is projected to grow by 3.9 percent this year and by 3.6 percent in 2018, she noted. Fruman said these projections were “fragile” as there are a number of uncertainty factors such as deteriorating demographic indicators, slowing productivity and a weak performance by state institutions.

The complete report in English available here

Republished with permission of Hungary Matters, MTI’s daily newsletter.