Debrecen4U October 17, 2024

Companies moving to Debrecen are committed to sustainability

Deputy Mayor Lajos Barcsa spoke about Debrecen’s economy at the National Meeting of Young Economists.

The National Meeting of Young Economists (Abbreviated as “FIKOT” in Hungarian), the most prestigious and one of the oldest events of the Hungarian Economic Society’s Youth Committee, was held in Debrecen for the 41st time this year.

The meeting, organised on the 11th of October, featured a series of presentations, round tables, and networking events.

Lajos Barcsa, re-elected Deputy Mayor of Debrecen, responsible for managing the municipality, coordinating tasks related to the control of financial processes, managing the municipality’s property management, public education, sports, and institution renovation tasks, gave a presentation.

Lajos Barcsa said that development must go hand in hand with sustainability efforts.

He pointed out that the University of Debrecen experts developed the Environmental Monitoring System. It will be set up and form a unified, coherent system with 16 complex measuring stations covering the whole city, providing data on our environment 24 hours a day, every day of the year.

He said that while ten years ago there were 160 hectares of industrial land, now there are ten times that number, 1,670 hectares, and these areas are populated. He added that over the last ten years, more than €12 billion of working capital has come to Debrecen, matched by nearly 20,000 new jobs.

Lajos Barcsa also discussed the Főnix Housing Programme, which will start in 2025 to help young people under 35 with jobs in Debrecen. He said that the municipality would subsidise one-third of the market rent for young people participating in the programme, one-third would be paid by employers, and one-third would be paid by young workers (the latter two proportions can be agreed upon between the employer and the worker; the municipality would only fix its own third). 

The deputy mayor said that the city’s business tax revenue had increased three and a half times in the last ten years, even before BMW and CATL had started operations. Lajos Barcsa pointed out that Debrecen’s leadership does not support the government’s planned overhaul of the business tax system, as Mayor László Papp has repeatedly stated.

He said that these increased revenues would create opportunities for more and more welfare measures, such as freeing public transport for children under 14 studying in Debrecen and launching the Debrecen panel programme.

Source:debrecen.hu