The Economic and Financial Situation of the Visegrad Countries

Fenyves, Veronika – Pető, Károly – Harangi-Rákos, Mónika – Szenderák, János

Keywords: agriculture, Visegrad countries, financial situation, Q1, Q14

The aim of the cooperation of the Visegrad countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) is to strengthen the positions of its members on both the European and global level. The common historical background, the similarities in the development of the last three decades help the Visegrad countries support each other in economic and political issues. The aim of this analysis is to present the actual status of the agricultural and food companies in the V4 Member States. Historically the primary sector used to play important role in the national economies of the Visegrad countries. After the political transitions in the region the primary sector’s participation in the GDP became less important, but because of the region’s geographical location and possibilities the functioning of the primary sector is still crucial. Looking at the key indicators of the agricultural companies, it appears that the fragmented economic structure in Hungary and Poland is reflected in both the capital structure and the credit structure. In Hungary and Poland, the share of long-term liabilities in 2017 was extremely low compared to the Czech Republic and Slovakia. This may partly be due to the high number of small businesses that are not sufficiently capital-intensive and financially stable to make long-term investments. In addition, Hungarian companies were dominated mainly by short-term liabilities, whereas the share of long-term and short-term liabilities was much more balanced in the remaining V4 Member States.

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