Storytelling Bus Stops - Housing Factory

In 1970, the Economic Committee decided that a concrete house factory could be built in Veszprém. Veszprém County State Construction Company (VÁÉV), which was the ninth housing factory in Hungary, inaugurated its self-financed project on 9th March 1975. Although the housing factory in Veszprém used Soviet technology, it was considered by experts to be the most modern of its kind after Larsen Nielsen housing factory in Kecskemét. From 1976, the company built nearly 30,000 homes across the country and beyond (e.g. in Káposztásmegyer, Békásmegyer, Libya and Iraq). They also built nurseries, schools, a community centre, a cinema and a new wing of the county hospital, yet they were the first major construction company to be liquidated. The company embarked on a major investment in Iraq in the early 1980s, under direct government orders, which ended with losses of hundreds of millions of dollars. Although part of this was taken over by the government budget, it was not enough to save the company.