OTP Bank won this yearʼs Hungarian round of Deloitteʼs "Green Frog" award, recognizing the best non-financial reports by companies, with BorsodChem winning an award for the best first report. Both companies progress to the CEE finals of the competition.

A news site focusing on the CEE region and reporting on e-commerce and online retail, dee-tail.com, has been launched recently, the publishers have told the Budapest Business Journal.

Workplace inspections by labour authorities showed the rate of illegal employment reached 13.62% in January-September of last year, a report by the Finance Ministryʼs Department of Labor Affairs shows, according to state news wire MTI.

Hungarian law firm Jalsovszky has named attorney Tamás Fehér a partner, while also announcing that the firmʼs litigation team will operate as a separate practice group starting this January, the Budapest Business Journal has learned.

Member states jeopardizing the rule of law or failing to tackle fraud and corruption will risk losing EU funds, according to a draft law endorsed by MEPs of the European Parliament, according to the European Parliamentʼs official website.

Ludwig Museum is organizing a series of events entitled "Iparterv 50+" in order to evoke the various registers of the social-political reality characterizing the 1960s and ‘70s, the contemporaneous scene surrounding the former "Iparterv" exhibitions, their art-historical antecedents and their impact on subsequent generations, according to a press release sent to the Budapest Business Journal.

The Government Debt Management Agency (ÁKK) sold a total of HUF 62 billion of bonds at auction on Thursday, lowering its original combined offer by HUF 3 bln, state news wire MTI reported.

Fém Arts & Café, located on Váci utca in Budapest, is presenting an English-language award-winning play called "Constellations" again on January 26.

The Budapest International Documentary Festival (BIDF) will be held for the fifth time between January 28 and February 3 in Cinema City Aréna, bringing the "Naked Truth" to the audience, according to a press release sent to the Budapest Business Journal.

According to job search website Profession.hu, the number of posted jobs and applications grew in number in 2018, with drivers and machinery operators getting better offers than ever due to ongoing labor shortages.

FAG Hungary, the local unit of Germanyʼs Schaeffler Group, has inaugurated a HUF 25 billion bearings factory in Debrecen, eastern Hungary, creating 500 jobs, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said on Wednesday, state news agency MTI reported. 

From this January onwards, Rita Hruska will be responsible for the marketing of international brands distributed by Dreher, such as Asahi, Pilsner Urquell, Kozel, HB, and Kingswood, the brewer told the Budapest Business Journal in a press release.

OTP Bank on Wednesday said it closed the acquisition of the Bulgarian unit of Franceʼs Société Générale Group on January 15, with OTP expecting to complete the integration process of its businesses in Bulgaria by 2020, according to a report by state news wire MTI.

According to a report by KSH, November saw a 3.7% increase in guest nights, compared to the same period of the previous year, with the number of nights spent by both international and domestic tourists on the rise.

Ron Daniels, president of Johns Hopkins University and chair of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education Evaluation Team, has recommended that the Budapest-based Central European University (CEU) be re-accredited for another five years as a U.S. higher education institution, says a press release sent to the Budapest Business Journal.

The Government Debt Management Agency (ÁKK) bought back HUF 38.1 billion of bonds maturing in 2020 at a reverse auction on Wednesday, state news wire MTI reported.

Improving efficiency via digitalization may offset negative factors such as the drying up of EU funding, and may prevent a significant decline in GDP growth in Hungary, András Somkuti, president of the Docler Group and CEO of e-signature specialist Netlock, says in a press release sent to the Budapest Business Journal.

Wheel manufacturing company Otto Fuchs Hungary has announced the acquisition of a 20-hectare site within the 62-hectare Tatabánya Industrial Park, approximately 60 kilometers west of the capital, with the intention to create a manufacturing plant of tens of thousand of square meters.

The Audi Hungaria Independent Trade Union (AHFSZ) has formed a strike committee after failing to reach an agreement on wage rises with management, the union said on its homepage, according to a report by state news wire MTI.

In 2017, the proportion of pensioners at risk of poverty in the European Union was estimated to be 14.2%, slightly above the figure of 13.8% in 2016. The proportion of Hungarian pensioners at risk of poverty stood at 9.1% in 2017, one of the lowest rates in the EU.