Budapest - The German engineering giant Bosch confirmed on Friday that it is to close down a unit in central Hungary where it manufactures car stereos.

Peter Dallos, the financial director of the Bosch-owned Digital Disc Drives plant in the Hungarian town of Kecskemet, told the local news agency MTI that orders were down by over half in the past few months as the crisis in the automotive industry deepens.

Budapest - The Budapest Stock Exchange suspended trading in shares of the Hungarian oil and gas company MOL just after 2 pm on Thursday citing a major forthcoming announcement by the company.

Trading in MOL shares will remain suspended on Friday and on Monday, February 2, the stock exchange announced.

"The issuer informed the bourse on January 29 that is about to make an extraordinary announcement that could greatly affect the share price, so it requested that trading be suspended," the CEO of the exchange, Gyorgy Mohai said in a statement.

Budapest - In Hungary's sixth bank robbery in just two weeks, an armed man wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses demanded cash on Wednesday morning from a branch of Unicredit bank in a Budapest shopping centre before making his escape on foot.

A couple of hours later, an armed man robbed a security van of several sacks of money outside another mall on the other side of the city. The police said they have no reason so far to think the crimes were connected.

Budapest - The Budapest Nabucco summit has broken the "deadlock that (the gas pipeline project) has suffered over the past few years," Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany told the press on Tuesday afternoon after the conclusion of high-level meetings with stakeholder countries and potential gas suppliers.

"We will do everything we can to make sure that stakeholder countries can come to an intergovernmental agreement by the middle of June," Gyurcsany said. "Following this we will endeavour to set up preliminary agreements with supply countries," he added.

Budapest - The heads of the EU's European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said on Tuesday that their institutions are prepared to provide financial backing for the Nabucco gas pipeline project, providing certain conditions are met.

"The EIB is ready to finance projects that further EU objectives of increased sustainability and energy security," said the president of the European Investment Bank Philippe Maystadt during the opening addresses by participants in a "Nabucco summit" in Hungary on Tuesday.

Budapest  - The gas crisis in January caused by a row between Russia and Ukraine over pricing has focused interest on the planned 3,300-kilometre Nabucco pipeline that would cut both countries out of the supply chain.

"We must not allow ourselves to be placed in this position in future," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said on Wednesday.

"The message I will take to the March European Council is that now we have to be serious about diversifying and investing in Europe's energy security future."