Foreword

Welcome Message

László György, Ph.D. Secretary of State for Economic Strategy and Regulation, Ministry for Innovation and Technology

Physicists are well aware that it is impossible to exactly describe the position of all the gas molecules trapped in a balloon, but if we have enough data on their movement, we can predict the behaviour of the balloon itself quite accurately. There are also tens of thousands of businesses that are constantly changing, evolving, and disappearing; however, economic policy needs up-to-date and accurate data to track and influence the movements of this sector.

This is why it is important news that the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), the world’s largest entrepreneurship survey, has resumed data collection in Hungary after a five-year break, led by BBS Budapest LAB Entrepreneurship Office, with the support of the Ministry of Innovation and Technology and the Makronóm Institute. The research involved a representative questionnaire survey of 2014 adults aged between 18–64 years and interviews with 36 selected experts.

Even amid the pandemic, the survey showed that entrepreneurship is booming in Hungary: one in two people know someone who has started a business in the last two years. The GEM survey provides information not only on the economic situation of businesses but also on the motivations of the entrepreneurs. It is worth noting that entrepreneurs in Hungary see their business not only as a way to make a living but also as a means to achieve something important, to make the world a somewhat better place. As one of the shapers of economic policy, I see this latter motivation as the strongest link between entrepreneurs and the enterprise development system, and a strong starting point for making Hungarian SMEs the winners of the 2020s.