Government supports energy-intensive manufacturing SMEs
Minister of Economic Development Márton Nagy, has announced that the government has adopted a program to support energy-intensive small and medium-sized enterprises.
The program, which will start on October 1, 2022, and run until the end of 2023, has two main elements.
One is to support the companies’ operating costs and the other is to support investment.
Support for operating costs means that for October, November and December the state will pay 50 percent of the increase in electricity and gas bills for energy-intensive manufacturing SMEs.
In addition, the government is launching an energy-transition and energy-efficiency investment support program, where SMEs will be given a maximum 15 percent self-financing subsidy to help them remain competitive in the long term.
Businesses will be asked to safeguard jobs and ensure that their employment does not fall below 90 percent of current levels by the end of 2023, the minister said.
The government has also discussed two other programs, one to save factories and a new action plan to protect jobs, but no final decision has been made on either.
