“We are far from our common goal: making a strong Hungary a reality,” Orbán said. The results so far are reassuring and a cause for hope, but we must not stop, lean back or allow easing, he added.

The government’s performance was sufficient over the past year, but much more will be required in the coming year, Orbán said. Although Hungary’s economic policy has been turned around, it is still in the danger zone, he added.

The new formula for Hungary’s economic policy is “growth plus work equals financial balance”, Orbán said. The most pressing task is to expand planning and coordination at the national economy level vertically, horizontally and by sector — on this depends the success of government and the country’s economic policy, he added.

Renewal can only come, can only continue, if the positive effects of the Széll Kálmán Plan come after 2012, if the Széchenyi Plan reaches SMEs, if multinationals expand their presence in Hungary, if the national industrial policy program is launched, and if public work programs get rolling, he said.

“While we have written off the theoretical fundamentals of the neoliberal era, we still have not developed the planning and coordination framework and practice for a 21st century economic policy that is not liberal,” he said. Because real economy planning has not been developed, financial planning also stands on one leg, he added.

Hungary is in a war with indebtedness and unemployment, a war it can only win with renewal and restructuring, Orbán said. Some think state debt and unemployment are challenges or problems to be solved, but the reality is that these are enemies of Hungary. “You can identify your enemy because your enemy will defeat you if you don’t defeat your enemy,” he added.

Hungary’s GDP has already started growing, the country has the eight-lowest fiscal deficit in the EU, state debt will fall significantly this year, and employment will rise, he said. Though it is not visible yet, consumption and investments will start growing in the second half of the year, public work programs will start and the service sector will pick up too, he added.

Orbán acknowledged criticism from abroad of the government’s legislative measures and economic policies, but said “it’s worth listening to ourselves, we don’t have to wait for anybody’s approval or disapproval.” In the face of such criticism “all we have to do is just say calmly, politely, with an unflinching face and at eye-level ‘that’s not your concern, that’s the concern of Hungarians’”, he added.

Until Hungarians can get by with five days of work a week, there is no chance of closing shops on Sunday, Orbán said. “When one can get by on five days of work a week, then I too will be among those who support keeping shops closed on Sunday. Until then, I feel there is no chance for this,” he said.

Speaking before Orbán at the conference, entitled “Economic Turn”, some of Hungary’s most important business leaders expressed satisfaction with the government’s first year of work.

Thomas Faustmann, who heads Audi Hungaria Motor, one of Hungary’s biggest exporters, said he was convinced that the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán would achieve targets set in the interest of modernizing the country. He also noted the importance of legal security and predictability.

Construction magnate Sándor Demján, who heads business association VOSz, said the government had started down the right path. He welcomed steps taken thus far, including putting off joining the eurozone and rejecting plans to unify the scale of taxes in the European Union.