Hungary Holds Back: The Hungarian government will...

Hungary Holds Back: The Hungarian government will publish a “short list” of companies that will be barred from foreign ownership late this summer, said Jone Pearce, associate dean of UC Irvine’s Graduate School of Management.

“The government is holding up certain companies from joint venture approvals because they view them as national assets and they fear that these companies will be sold off too cheaply,” she said.

Pearce recently returned from a weeklong visit to Hungary to study economic development there. She recommends that U.S. companies seeking to do business in Hungary avoid some bureaucratic delays by starting a new company from scratch rather than signing a joint venture that will require government approval.

She suggests that companies contact major U.S. accounting firms, most of which have set up offices in Budapest, or get help from the American-Hungarian Chamber of Commerce in Budapest.