The pace at which European Union funding is paid out in Hungary has picked up, but it must accelerate further if all of the resources available are to be used up, National Development Minister Tamás Fellegi said at a conference on Thursday.

An average HUF 35.1bn of EU funding is paid out each week at present, up from HUF 5.5bn earlier, Fellegi said at the conference organized by the National Development Agency, the Hungarian Economic Development Centre and the European Commission. The number of contracts on the funding signed each week has climbed to 174 from 103, he added.

In the past year, 2,697 contracts involving some HUF 93bn in funding have been signed, Fellegi said.