Hungary

There are 21 small clusters in Hungary. These clusters are in the area of automotive, wood and furniture, electronics, thermal, food, building, textile, touristic and optomechatronic , that’s mainly from traditional sectors. The number of ‘big’ clusters is about 6-8, from which the best are: PANAC – Pannon Automotive Cluster, PANNONFA – Pannon Wood and Furniture Cluster, South Great Plain Textiles Cluster. There are 8-10 “clusters” (e.g. Hungarian Fashion Cluster, HSA Software-development Cluster, handicraft, tourism clusters) near to embryonic stage. These “clusters” with suitable support can raise the present number of clusters.  The best operating clusters are located in the Southern Great Plain and in the Northwest. There are no clusters in the North of Hungary. This phenomenon shows too, the existence of regional disparities in Hungary. Northwest Hungary with Pest county and the capital are the most developed regions.

Two-thirds of foreign investments is located in Central Hungary Region, where the capital investment per capita is 13 times higher than in the most disadvantaged Southern Transdanubia Region. Almost half of foreign direct investment has flown to Budapest. National government, ministries, major banks, foreign embassies and relatively developed infrastructure, all in Budapest, made foreigners difficult to invest – apart from north-western parts - in other parts of the country. The industrial production shows a great concentration in the north-western part of Hungary too. Although Western Transdanubia, Central Transdanubia and Central Hungary gave 67.12% of the Hungarian industrial production in 2001, there were high in-region inequalities in these regions. It’s worth drawing attention to Budapest (15.53%) and two counties (Fejér county 14.67% and Győr-Moson-Sopron county – 11.08%), which contributed 41.28% to the total production two years before.