Hungarian Investment Promotion Agency

Constant innovation and development as well as the manufacturing of products of a quality complying with international standards is now inevitable for all companies in the supplier's chain. With the help of the Supplier Department of HIPA, more than 70 SMEs were given the opportunity to get acquainted with the toolbox helping the growth of Hungarian enterprises and to consult with the purchasing managers of all GE divisions present in Europe about the conditions of production demands and becoming a supplier.

A strategic partner of the Government of Hungary, GE is committed to integrate small and medium enterprises of Central and Eastern Europe into its supplier's chain as efficiently as possible and to help them in entering to the international market. The success of this aim is well demonstrated by the fact that the value of purchases by GE from this region exceeds USD 1.7 billion annually and that GE wishes to increase the value of products and services purchased from the regional SMEs, including Hungarian enterprises, to a large extent by 2020. For achieving this purpose, GE increases its SME supplier's base and promotes the development of large suppliers into regional suppliers.

Apart from the encouragement of investments, a priority task of HIPA is to reinforce the role of Hungarian SME suppliers and to increase the proportion of Hungarian added value through this. The Supplier Department of HIPA focuses mainly on corporations that are active in the automotive, machinery and electronic industries and on the related Hungarian SME sector but it can deal with any other productive industry if needed. Building on the growth objectives of corporations, the Supplier's Unit of HIPA makes efforts to leverage Hungarian SMEs by several training courses, international presentation opportunities and business meetings.