Ságvári Ágnes (szerk.): Budapest. The History of a Capital (Budapest, 1975)
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employed by these enterprises therefore work in factories which are not within the confines of Budapest. But the importance of the Budapest industries is very great even discounting the provincial factories for the number of workers actually employed in Budapest amounts to 43 per cent of all the workers employed in the national industries. And if we subtract the mining sector, which is entirely located in the provinces, from the national figures the share of the capital is as high as 50 per cent. In so far as the number of workers is concerned, light industry in Budapest takes over 55 per cent of the total, and heavy industry (including coal mining in the national figures) takes over 40 per cent. The share of the capital, at only 32 per cent, is much lower in the food processing industry. In heavy industry Budapest predominates particularly the production of electrical machinery, precision engineering, rubber and plastics. In terms of manpower, more than 70 per cent of these branches of industry are concentrated in Budapest. In certain branches of industry the concentration of manpower in Budapest is considerably higher than the average 55 per cent for light industry as a whole: in the paper-making industry it amounts to 77 per cent, in printing it is 80 per cent, and in mass production generally it is 70 per cent. In 1960 the share taken by the nationally-owned industries located in Budapest was more than 47 per cent of the country’s total industrial output. A large variety of goods— highly important for the population and the national economy—are even today being exclusively, or very nearly, produced in this country by Budapest enterprises. ... The territorial redistribution of Hungarian industry, the effort to liquidate industrial backwardness in the provinces, has been a question very much to the forefront almost since the Liberation. The period between the Liberation and 1950—which marked the beginning of the First Five-Year Plan—produced nothing of value in this respect, but it laid down important targets for the national economy in this field. 80 per cent of all industrial investment in the period of the plan, was devoted to the development of industry in the provinces, 20 per cent to the industries of Budapest. By 1954—the end of the First Five-Year Plan—Budapest’s share in the nationally-owned industries as a whole had dropped to 44 per cent (from 53 per cent in 1938, based on the number of workers employed). The percentage of Budapest industry in the whole was thus somewhat reduced, although the labour force in the capital expanded rapidly between 1949 and 1954 at an average annual rate of some 24,000 men. There has been no substantial progress towards more rational distribution of productive forces since 1954. In the 1955-1960 period, 29 per cent of industrial investment was devoted to the development of industry in Budapest—compared to 20 per cent in 1950-54—mainly for the improvement of technical standards and increases in productivity. With this in view, the growing proportion of investment in Budapest is by no means negative, but it was nevertheless accompanied by a considerable increase in the labour force, although at a lower rate than in the provinces. The number of workers employed in nationally-owned industries in Budapest grew by 63,000 (20 per cent) between 1954 and 1960; in the provinces at the same time the figure increased by 98,000 men (25 per cent). In 1960 nationallyowned industries in Budapest employed 43 per cent of the national labour force, compared to 44 per cent in 1954. 129
