RFE/RL Daily Report
                                    No. 144, 1 August 1994

SLOVAK NATIONALISTS SLAM HUNGARIANS, JEWS. About 1,000 people
gathered in Surany on 31 July to protest against various demands
of the Hungarian minority in southern Slovakia. Slovak media
report that the meeting was organized by the Slovak Heritage
Foundation (Matica Slovenska); no government officials were
present but Ivan Gasparovic, chairman of the Slovak Parliament
and a member of Vladimir Meciar's Movement for a Democratic
Slovakia, addressed the crowd. Jan Slota, chairman of the Slovak
National Party (SNP), told the audience that the Slovak
parliament is "not a Slovak one" because it recently adopted a
law allowing the use of bilingual signs in municipalities where
an ethnic minority constitutes at least 20% of the municipality's
inhabitants. On 29 July Slota attempted to distance himself and
his party from a special supplement to the pro-Meciar daily
Republika published in the name of his party several days
earlier, which contained racist and anti-semitic articles. The
headline of one of the articles read: "Only Jews Live Well in
Slovakia." Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL, Inc.

HUNGARIAN, ROMANIAN DEFENSE MINISTERS MEET. Gyorgy Keleti and his
Romanian counterpart Gheorghe Tinca met on 29 July in Gyula,
Hungary to review bilateral military relations and ways to expand
military cooperation, MTI reported. Tinca brought with him ten
proposals fitting into the Partnership for Peace program with
NATO and which include joint maneuvers, and exchanges of officers
at military academies. Tinca stressed the need to strengthen
mutual confidence, while Keleti said the Romanian proposals would
benefit the Hungarian army training program and invited Tinca to
visit Budapest in the fall.  Alfred Reisch, RFE/RL, Inc.

HUNGARIAN FOREIGN TRADE DEFICIT. According to Minister of
Industry and Trade Laszlo Pal, Hungary's foreign trade registered
a $1.7 billion deficit in the first half of 1994 compared to the
same period of last year, MTI announced on 29 July. Exports rose
in value by 7.8% to $4.6 billion and imports by 5.4% to $6.3
billion. Industrial goods accounted for 78.4% and foodstuffs for
21.6% of all exports while agricultural products made up 23.6% of
all imports. In the first five months of this year, industrial
production rose by 8.3% compared to the same period of 1993 and
$486 million in foreign capital entered Hungary; the total number
of joint enterprises passed the 21,000 mark, an increase of 2,073
during the January-June 1994 period.  Alfred Reisch, RFE/RL, Inc.


  [As of 1200 CET]
  Compiled by Saulius Girnius and Dan Ionescu
Copyright 1994, RFE/RL, Inc. All rights reserved.