The head of the Christian Democrats (KDNP) last week said that his party wished to initiate a debate on restricting Sunday working hours to a bare minimum. Zsolt Semjén claimed that working on a Sunday was unconstitutional and said the party wanted to restore Sunday as a holiday.
Only 1 in 9 Hungarians (12%) is able to put aside savings according to a poll by Sonda Ipsos published in newsmagazine Figyelő. Some 71% said their incomes were around the threshold of making ends meet. Somewhat positive was a shift in attitudes towards the future: only 51% felt their household finances were going to worsen, compared to 58% who felt the same in the first quarter.
The minimum subsistence level for an average household has risen by 6.2% since 2005, the Central Statistical Office said last week. The minimum level is now HUF 174,371 (EUR 707) per month. The calculation was based on two adults and two children.
State Tax Authority (APEH) chairman János Szikora last week told Napi Gazdaság that the body had increased its detection of unpaid taxes by 24% yr-on-yr. He said that APEH had started 11,000 investigations into personal assets, even though the 2007 target was for 10,000.
The fee for visits to outpatient clinics went up last week from HUF 600 to HUF 1,000 for those visiting without referral.
The farm-gate price for milk will rise by 2-5% this week, following on from a 5% increase at the start of the year, chairman for the Milk Product Council Miklós Istvánfalvi said last week.
Audi A5 Coupé has the looks & the moves… if you have the resourcesSporty, elegant and powerful – these are the basic properties of every Audi, and particularly of the new Audi A5. “It’s the most beautiful car that I have ever designed,” raves Audi chief designer Walter de Silva, who has recently been promoted to head of design of the entire Volkswagen group in Wolfsburg.
New Citroen C4 Picasso By renaming the seven-seater C4 Picasso as the Grand C4 Picasso, Citroen made way for its smaller five-seater brother, which, with a length of 4.7 metres, really is between the Grand C4 and the Xsara.
Eight years after the first Fabia, Skoda is now entering the hatchback race with the second generation model. With the new Fabia, Skoda has retained and further developed all the features which inspired 1.5 million drivers to buy the first-generation Fabia.
Bankruptcies up dramatically, firms dropping from registerThe number of liquidations is on the rise and the number of firms removed from the company register could soon equal the number of firms being added, according to the latest study published by Opten Kft. “That means, the number of Hungarian companies is stagnating, and could soon even show a negative trend,” said Tamás Tóth, CEO of Opten Kft. Compared to the same period of last year the number of bankruptcies in the first half of 2007 shot up, with more than 4,000 firms ceasing operation in the first six months of this year compared to 2,000-2,400 previously.
