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Archived Articles
Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.
He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.
In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.
Global Real Estate Project
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Hungary: Limits of the easy growth
In 2004 Hungary joined EU and at that time it seemed that all major problems of the country have been solved by the mere fact of EU membership. Unfortunately this wasn't the case despite the fact that EU might serve very well as security policy for its less developed members. Instead of going up, the economy growth rates began to fall down. The foreign investors that in mass have "discovered" the country just before its membership are now less enthusiastic about their next steps. Opening up the western markets so far turns to be mixed blessing given that some previous foreign investors have decided to move out of the country looking for even cheaper producers. Hungary is still managing to maintain 50% of the living standards in the main West European countries. This is high enough to discourage mass emigration from the country. On the other hand, it isn't high enough to generate investment influx driven only by the local customers' demand. The foreign investors still look at Hungary mainly as a cheap producing base for exporting goods to countries like Germany and Austria. Only a robust economic growth can change this perception about the country. Different factors explain the gradual shift in foreign investors' attitudes. Some of them have nothing to do with Hungary, e.g. the rising interests in the U.S. or the economic stagnation in Germany, which is the main market to Hungarian exports. Some others are results of Hungarian political decisions. The foreign public debt has grown from $20 to $57 billion in just 15 years. The long-term economic goals have been partly undermined by focusing on short-term social opportunism. Hungary will need 20-30 good economic years to catch up with Western Europe and to become a country that is attractive because of its internal demand, not because of its cheaper exports. The real estate market continues to boom with the residential prices in the capital city ranging between $1,200-1,700 per sq.meter. This represents an increase of 20-25% over the last 12-15 months, which confirms our previous forecasts. The flip side of this growth is that it has almost reached its "natural" limits. In Brussels the similar properties are sold for $1,400-1,900 and the Belgian capital city is still more important business and political center than Budapest. Hungary country profile: --------------------
See also the directory of companies providing real estate services in, and general real estate information of Hungary.
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