Mr. Erik Haupt, you are the Ambassador of Hungary in Greece & Cyprus. You have declared your love towards our country. You even speak Greek very well. What led you to that decision?
I like history and the European history begins in and with Greece. It was during a study-visit to Greece in the 80’s that I became enchanted by the beauty of the country, by the Greek people and culture. It was evident that I had to learn the language as well.
How is the standard of living in Hungary? Compared to Greece, how easy or difficult is it for a citizen to prosper within a healthy entrepreneurship?
Thanks to the successful economic policy the Hungarian living standard is increasing. The government reduced the corporate tax to 9%, the income tax to 15%, pushed down the unemployment rate under 4%, the minimum and the average wages, the consumption and the investments are increasing. Hungarians are seeing a major increase in their wages, with the average gross monthly salary now standing at 962 Euros. This represents a 14.4% increase compared to 2016. Inflation in Hungary is at just 2.3%. The bulk of the increase is connected to the 15% to 25% rise in the minimum wage, in large part within the public sector. Hungarian wages are set to further increase by 10% in 2018.
What are the similarities and the differences that you have spotted between the startup ecosystems of Greece and Hungary?
The Hungarian ecosystem, like a real startup, is in fast growth mode. The Government adopted the Digital Startup Strategy in 2016, with the aim of making the country Central Europe’s startup capital by 2020. It has also announced a series of projects, like the Startup Campus, which offers a solution to the most significant issue of local start-up ecosystems, the need for the recruitment of new startups. The Government is also working to introduce 5G technology among the first world-wide. Hungarian startups are strong on technology and technical development, the hottest domains are cybersecurity, encryption technologies, big data and SaaS. Historically there has been a lot of focus on energy and medical sciences in Hungary and it reflects in today’s startup statistics too. Besides the three Internet giants Prezi, Ustream and LogMeIn there are several hot new startups; Trezorit (cloud security), Synetiq (neuromarketing), Enbrite.ly (admetrics), or Neticle (metrics), just to name a few. The fast advancing ecosystem, along with the high level of science education, the excellent funding options (Budapest became the No.1. capital in the EU in terms of per capital venture capital in the past 5 years.) and the relatively low cost environment all help to explain why already successful Hungarian startups have stayed at home, although much of their business is done abroad. A good example is LogMeIn, which has its headquarters in Boston but its development centres are still in Hungary.
Read the rest of the interview (in greek) in epixeiro.gr
