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Viktor Orban has written off the country's tourist season. /Michal Cizek /AFP
The Hungarian budget needs to be redrawn to offset the impact of COVID-19 and the outbreak will cause the tourist season to "go down the drain," according to Viktor Orban, the country's prime minister.
"We have to prepare for a pandemic. We have to understand what a pandemic is and what consequences it will have on us. I want to tell you that we must all prepare to get out of our comfort zone," Orban said.
Speaking at the annual conference of the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce in Budapest, Orban said that if nothing changed, Hungary would go bankrupt.
"The national economy will get into trouble but you also one by one will go bankrupt, believe me."
Orban told business leaders uncertainty and caution in the economy would run high in coming months, adding that the tourism, logistics and hospitality industries would be hit hard.
"The tourist season this year would go down the drain. So we have to reckon that it is all done, it's over," he said.
"So everyone who is somehow connected to the mood of movement and travel of people, they have to calculate with a serious economic setback."
Orban said Hungary needed to redraw its budgets for 2020 and 2021 and offer major assistance to economic sectors worst hit by the outbreak.
"Obviously we have to redraw the budget for 2020 completely, and replan the one for 2021 because we need to create funds of billions of forints [the currency of Hungary] to help the economy. This will not be simple at all, and it will require some contribution from everyone.
"We will discuss what and how, when we get there, but no one will be able to escape this.”
He said a solution was needed so that the economic crisis was not similar in scale to that of 2008.
Last week, the head of the Confederation of Hungarian Employers and Industrialists said Hungarian firms faced component shortages because of the coronavirus's impact on supply chains, which could aggravate a slowdown that had already begun.
The government reduced its economic growth forecast to 3.5 percent from 4 percent earlier this year, partly due to the impact of the spread of the coronavirus globally.
Hungary had 12 confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of Tuesday.
