ABSTRACT
Hungary's "New Economic Mechanism," established in 1968, proved to be too inflexible to adapt the structure of the national economy to changed world market conditions. Hungary's membership in the IMF and the World Bank not only resulted in new credit sources, but more importantly in the recognition of Hungary's solvency and creditworthiness thus facilitating access to international financial markets. The economic development in the first half of the 1980s, however, indicated very early that only some of the targets could be realized. Whereas agriculture proved to be an important pillar of the Hungarian economy industry was forced to cope with a number of problems. Very often the maintenance of the standard of living achieved thus far was stressed as an important objective of the economic policy at the beginning of the 1980s. The rise in competitiveness of Hungarian export products on world markets is the basis of a future economic upswing and the fulfillment of the new Five Year Plan.
