Hungarian government: China’s economic growth is an opportunity for Hungary

Representatives of some 250 companies participated at a Hungarian-Chinese business forum in Budapest on Thursday, Levente Magyar, a state secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said.

Magyar said the business forum, held after a meeting of the Hungarian-Chinese Joint Economic Committee, was the biggest of its kind, so far. The stable economic and political ties Hungary has with China are appreciating in value amid the current geopolitical situation, he said. Those advanced bilateral ties are the product of 15 years of work, he added.

Magyar said the scale of China’s economic growth was an opportunity for Hungary. At talks with Ling Ji, China’s deputy minister for commerce, Magyar said the sides had agreed to focus on knowledge-intensive, high value-added investments, in addition to ones in the manufacturing and commerce sectors.

Addressing the forum, Ling Ji pointed to opportunities in areas such as energy, digitalisation and research and development, in addition to boosting bilateral trade and investment volume. He said China welcomed Hungarian IT and biotechnology companies. He noted that the strategic partnership between China and Hungary had been stepped up during a visit to Budapest by Chinese President Xi Jinping a year earlier. Global economic uncertainty does not stand in the way of developing that partnership further, he said.

Gong Tao, China’s ambassador to Hungary, said China’s Belt and Road Initiative, based on mutual respect, dovetailed with Hungary’s Eastern Opening policy. He added that bilateral trade had climbed 11.4pc to USD 16.2bn last year. China’s Sinochem signed a memorandum of understanding with two Hungarian companies, Bunge Zrt and Viterra Hungary Kft, on the purchase of refined sunflower seed oil at the forum.

The forum was organised by China’s Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Hungarian Export Promotion Agency (HEPA) and the Hungarian Investment Promotion Agency (HIPA).

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