The Prospective Hungarian Pension Reform in an International Perspective

Professionals no longer dispute that reforming Hungary’s pension scheme is a must. The current structure, which carries substantial macroeconomic risks, is deemed unsustainable in the long run. There are a number of studies that underpin this, a most recent one of them is an analysis by Standard & Poor’s, which ranked Hungary 2nd among developed countries with the largest uncovered pension debt to 2050.

Professionals no longer dispute that reforming Hungary’s pension scheme is a must. The current structure, which carries substantial macroeconomic risks, is deemed unsustainable in the long run. There are a number of studies that underpin this, a most recent one of them is an analysis by Standard & Poor’s, which ranked Hungary 2nd among developed countries with the largest uncovered pension debt to 2050.

The “share" of the pension system in Hungary’s public sector deficit is already about 2% of GDP - even now when demographic conditions are favourable - while no country could have a deficit larger than 3% of GDP if it wants to join the euro zone. Without deep reforms this “contribution" is seen going up to 3.5% of GDP by 2040.

Portfolio.hu will organise its next conference titled “The Hungarian pension reform in international perspective", with professional support by HunEx-Econ, an organisation of Washington-based Hungarian economists, on 17 October in Budapest’s WestEnd Hilton.

The aim of the conference is to live up to the importance of the matter and offer a number of different concepts for the reform, as well as to present European pension reform examples (in Sweden, Germany and Poland). It is also our unconcealed goal to take the professional debate from Portfolio.hu’s pages to the highest level possible and thus contribute to the revamping of Hungary’s pension regime.

Three main groups of speakers:

Pension experts from the World Bank
Experts preparing / executing European pension reforms
Hungarian professionals versed in pension matters

Target audience:

Pension economists in the public sector and non-governmental organisations
Macroeconomists in the private and public sectors
Private pension funds, voluntary and mutual insurance
Actuaries
Demography experts
Labour market experts
Risk managers (changes in government securities’ risk ratings in light of budget implications of the aging process)
Investment fund managers
Asset managers
Private banks
Experts of capital market supervising
"Reform economists of the public sector" and all those who are keen to learn more of the public sector’s reform
Economic media