Hungarian Economists' Society of Romania
The Hungarian Economists' Association of Romania (HESR) was founded on 28th July 1990 at Cluj/Kolozsvár. The aim of the Association is formulated in the constitution as follows: The task of the Association is to organise its members' professional activity and to help them in their work so that they could always refresh their knowledge gained during the dictatorship. It was very important to achieve change in quality because without doing this one cannot have an effective activity when economic changes and market economy are to be introduced.Nowadays the above mentioned aim is a little bit "outworn" and so it has to be completed with the following elements: professional discussions, scientific sessions, section meetings, publishing documents about the activities of the sections, giving professional advise on founding and organising enterprises, on problems regarding commerce and finances (with special regard to private enterprises and developing new economic conditions). The Association has special libraries and edits a periodical for its members to provide further technical training for them. The Association helps its members to publish the results of their researches and at the same time supports their training further on. After the establishment and registration (2nd August 2000) of the HESR of Kolozsvár/Cluj local organisations were set up all over Transylvania. At present, apart from few exceptions, we have local organisations in all the great cities of the counties of Transylvania, eleven in number. They are in the following cities: Arad/Arad, Brassó (Hungarian name of the city) / Brasov (Romanian name of the city), Csíkszereda / Miercurea Ciuc, Gyergyószentmiklós / Gheorgheni, Kolozsvár / Cluj, Marosvásárhely / Targu Mures, Nagybánya / Baia Mare, Nagyvárad / Oradea, Sepsiszentgyörgy / Sfantu Gheorghe, Szatmárnémeti / Satu Mare, Székelyudvarhely / Odorheiu Secuiesc. We plan to establish - although up to this time we have not managed to - local organisations at Temesvár / Timisoara and Zilah / Zalau. The structure of the Association is a horizontal one. This means that each local organisation has an independent activity taking into account the possibilities and specific demands of that place. Each organisation works to fulfil the aims exposed in the Constitution. The national executive board, which now has one president and four vice-presidents, according to the possibilities tries to help their work in every respect. The national executive board has made strenuous efforts to gain money for buying a property. Finally it managed to have a centre of its own. Here we have an office, a council-room and a library (plus kitchen, bathroom, cellar, attic, box-room). We opened the centre-house on 24th January 1998 and there were invited the representatives of our local organisations and personalities from Romania and Hungary. Since 1998 we have been employing a managing secretary whose work noticeably contributed to the promotion of the activity of the Association. Because of the increasing "volume" of the work since April 1999 we have been employing a librarian who works four hours per day. This year we have made new efforts in order to begin the work in the attic. We want to make there a lecture room (40-sq. metre) and a guest-room. Beside this we begin to fit up the cellar for youth-club. Today we offer complete infrastructure (telephone, computers, printer, foil-screener, video, television etc.) to the staff, officials and programme organisers as well. Since we have our own centre and permanent staff we can work under more favourable conditions so we can work more and better. It seems that our Association has found its place among the strongest Hungarian organisations of Romania. We consider this is due to our successful programmes (most of all our traditional regional meetings), our participation in other important economic programmes and the edition of our Economic Forum (lately becoming thematic - since 1996 we edit it every three month). Training/Instruction Our co-operation was and is very fruitful with our mate-organisation from Hungary (Hungarian Economic Association) and with the University of Economics and Political Sciences - Budapest. Due to the effective help of these two institutes just after our start, in the Autumn of the year 1999, invited personalities delivered a series of lectures (4x4) in four cities of Transylvania (Kolozsvár, Marosvásárhely, Nagyvárad, Székelyudvarhely). Well-known specialists from the University of Economic Sciences of Budapest, the Institute for World Economy Researches of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences delivered very useful lectures on economic opening and other problems belonging to the field of market economy. There were 500 participants.These lectures, debates, discussions, organised more or less regularly in different Transylvanian cities, was professional training and gave possibility for discussing about the actual questions of economy. Such kinds of programmes were organised by our local organisations from Kolozsvár, Marosvásárhely, Székelyudvarhely, Szarmárnémeti, Szováta and other places. Among the invited personalities were Béla Csákány, Lajos Bokros, János Szász, Zoltán Bogáti, Zoltán Pitti, Gábor Páter, Sándor Kovács, József Kindler, András Csanádi, Ferenc Kiss, József Neményi, László Kerekes. Our Association considers that it is very important to instruct and to continue to educate young economists. Let mention here some of the programmes organised in this respect: In the period of 10th-13th March 1991 sixty young Transylvanian economists participated at the Forum on Economy (course). Their participation was sponsored by the University of Economic Sciences and by the Hungarian Ministry of Finances. The most well known university professors, researchers and businessmen delivered the lectures. They talked about the questions of the hour of today's changing economy. In some cases the participants met with the representatives of the parties of the Parliament. With these personalities they had very useful discussions about actual questions. In September 1993 the Faculty of Financial Sciences of the University of Economics - Budapest in co-operation with the Banker's Post-graduate School S.C. organised a two-week' intensive retraining school. 50 young economists participated there. Thanks to the Banker's Post-graduate School S.C. many young economists from Transylvania, who work at banking houses, could take part in such programmes. At the University of Economics of Budapest 24 young Transylvanian economists could postgraduate (2 year-long study) between 1993-1995. There was a seven weeks' intensive professional training in Nagyvárad and in Budapest for 36 young entrepreneurs or will-be entrepreneurs. At the end of the training the candidates who passed the exams received a certificate issued by the University of Economics of Budapest. Both of the programmes are the results of the successful co-operation between the Foundation Sándor Farkas Bölöni of Budapest and Kolozsvár. Between 7th-15th July 1997 our organisation from Kolozsvár with the effective help of those from Csíkszereda organised a successful broker-training course for young economists (place: Hargitafürdo), the majority of which works at banking houses. The title of the training was "The Exchange and Money Market". Important specialists from Hungary delivered lectures and led the seminars. We can mention here the possibilities given by the mate organisations and foundations. In this way our young economists could participate at economists' forums, conferences, courses and seminars organised in different countries. Here we mention only some of them: Germany (one-week instructional trip sponsored by the Hungarian Democrats' Association of Romania); Switzerland (a three months' training for those who organise training for entrepreneurs - University of Neuchatel); Prague (one-week conference on environment protection and economics - Soros Foundation); Kartovo, Poland (with the help of Soros Foundation four weeks' course about the micro- and macroeconomic problems - organised by the Polish Foundation István Báthory); Budapest - a conference organised in English by the Christian-Democrat Academy entitled "Economic Programmes for the New Democracies"). In these programmes one or two of our representatives could take part. (They had to applicate and they were selected by the organisers.) Our association sent 30-40 economists and 2-3 lecturers to the Summer University of the Academy Ady Endre (two two weeks' instruction). Our regional organisations are also represented here. Economists' Regional Meetings Our regional meetings, which have important place among our programmes, are regularly organised since 1991; there we discuss economic and financial problems of topical interest. These meetings are considered today as one of the most important events of the HESR.We managed to invite well-known specialists from Hungary to deliver the opening speech of the debates. More and more specialists from Romania contributed to the successfulness of our regional meetings: Up to now we have published two books containing the material of the lectures of our two meetings (Hargitafürdo. Spa Felix): "The Problems of Topical Interest in the Field of Privatisation" and "Economy-Euro-Regions"(1999). At the beginning we had around 80-100 participants, but year after year there came more and more people. Our lately organised meetings reached a higher level; the participants outnumbered 200 persons. This fact proves that our economists are more and more interested in the problems discussed during our meetings. Press and Publications During the years our Association has shown great concern about editing a Hungarian periodical in Romania. The initiative has brought partial success. On the one hand the periodical edited in Sepsiszentgyörgy (title: "Market and Economy") was short-lived; it had only few numbers. On the other the weekly "Pulse" (edited in Székelyudvarhely since 1996) has great success.Our Association has edited the "Journal" in January 1998. At that time it had only 4 pages. Its aim was to inform quarter-yearly the economists and specialists about the most important events. Meanwhile we enlarged our quarterly with new themes dealing with problems of speciality. Just from the beginning our aim was to make regular the edition of our "Journal" so as to have place for publishing information and papers written on professional problems. Beside the descriptive articles we aim to widen the space for the professional ones. In this way the economists could publish the results of their researches and they could expose their thoughts as well. That is why we urged the leaders and the members of our local organisations to take the opportunity of publishing. At the same time they could be aware that with their work they could inform people and they can contribute to the development of social economics as well. Sad to say but our local organisations has not joined in the activity of our periodical, though we would be glad if our "Journal" would be a scientific workshop of the whole Association. Since 1999 our "Journal" is edited under the title of "Economists' Forum" (Vol. II, No. 4). The "Forum" has 16 pages and we can publish articles dealing with the varied fields of economics. Some titles are: "New Crisis Focus Influences the Hungarian Stock-Exchange", "Personnel Income-tax", "The Role of the Romanian National Bank in the Romanian Bank Structure", "Bank-supervising", "The Risk, the Expected Yield and the Effectiveness of Portfolio", "Melting Tradition and Novelty in Marketing", "The Situation of the Potentiality of the Romanian Rural Development", "Case-study: Commune Csanad". Hungarian Economists' Society of Romania - Youth Fraction The Youth Fraction of our Association was founded between 13th-15th November 1988 at Szováta (Sovata). According to its own definition: "Hungarian Economists' Society of Romania - Youth Fraction (HYF) is a professional gathering that safeguards young economists' interests and of these peoples' who are interested in economic problems." This fraction is an inner organisation of the Hungarian Economists' Association of Romania and works in co-operation with the HESR following common aims. Its activity is based on local self-organisation. Its aim is to co-ordinate the young Hungarian economists' professional activity, to enrich it and to establish new relations. They embrace the following tasks: 1. to organise professional programmes; Education Our Association has worked through the years for the re-establishment of the Babes-Bolyai University in order to have an independent Hungarian University at Kolozsvár. This would mean to have again Economic Branch in Hungarian. We have prepared the syllabus of the fields of studies in which we solicit Hungarian groups. We have made a list of the personalities who would be able and competent to teach there. The Local College from Sepsiszentgyörgy of the Babes-Bolyai University signifies a positive result.We co-operate with the Foundation that aims with the help of the Historic Hungarian Churches to establish a university having branches where young people can learn in Hungarian. At present these branches are only in Romanian at "Babes-Bolyai University". We undertook to make the dossier for accreditation for the planned economic-informatics, monetary and bookkeeping branches. We are a member of the Committee that awards scholarships (given by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, scholarships for those branches that are missing in Transylvania, postgraduate studies, PhDs). We have also the possibility to express an opinion on the sharing out of the financial aids given by economic NGO organisations. The mediator is the economic corporation of the Illyés Foundation. The HESR has spent much time on teaching economics in secondary schools. The Collection of Our Library Our organisation from Kolozsvár takes charge of the library further on. Its visitors are mainly students but there are also professors, journalists and economists among them. At present 3500 books are catalogued. We have 355 permanent library members. Lately we have got books in Hungarian, Romanian and other West European languages. This is due to the Illyés Foundation, the University of Economics of Budapest and the Department of Economic Sciences of the "Janus Pannonius"University of Pécs. Last year 45 books from the economist's Lajos Nagy (Kolozsvár) inheritance were added to the collection and also the 8 volumes of the Hungarian Encyclopaedia (published up to now) and the 4 volumes of the Encyclopaedia Hungarica were catalogued.Periodicals: World Economics - daily, Financial Review, Economic Review, Foreign Trade, Europe Forum, Finnish Economic Papers, Pulse - weeklies, Space and Society - Hungarian academy of Sciences, Centre for Regional Researches, Regional Statistics - the monthly of the Statistical Service and the Review of Debrecen. Fields: general economics, history of economics, socio-economics, politics, socio-politics/welfare, economic development, law, employment problems, human resources, world economics, trade, finances, bookkeeping, statistics, foreign trade, marketing, logistics, regional economics, insurance, environmental economics. The greatest part of the collection belongs to the field of finances, marketing and the economics of the enterprises.
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