Budapest, November 17, 1999

Central European, a publication of the British financial and publishing group Euromoney, has named MATÁV Central European Company of the Decade.

Besides outstanding performance, the paper cited the following reasons justifying its selection:

• MATÁV was the first Central European telecommunications company to attract strategic investors (Deutsche Telekom and Ameritech),
  
• MATÁV was the first Central European company to float its shares on the New York Stock Exchange,
  
• over the past decade MATÁV invested more than HUF 1000 billion in Hungarian telecommunications.

MATÁV has been honored with several industry and social awards in recent years. The most prestigious among them are the Financial Times Global Telecoms Award and the Innovation Award of the Hungarian Ministry of Transport, Communications and Water Management. The Budapest Stock Exchange qualified MATÁV as 'Best Stock Market Issuer of 1998' and in the same year the company received the Corporate Donor of the Year award.