The world's largest battery manufacturer has chosen to build its second European plant in Hungary.Continue reading
The foundation stone has been laid for the third largest investment in Hungary this year, with South Korea’s W-Scope building a HUF 300 billion (EUR 726 million) plant in Nyíregyháza in eastern Hungary, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó announced at the site on Tuesday.
At the ground-breaking ceremony, the minister said that South Korean W-Scope will open its first European plant in Hungary, which will produce 1.2 billion square meters of separator film for electric car batteries annually, creating 1,200 new jobs in Nyíregyháza.
In his speech, Szijjártó highlighted that the European economy has suffered two blows in recent years; most recently, the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, which has had serious consequences as the continent’s competitiveness was based on Russian raw materials and advanced European technology, but the threads of this cooperation have now virtually all been cut.
The European economy is rapidly heading towards recession, and in this situation Hungary’s objective cannot be anything other than to stay out of it,”
he said, adding that this requires sustaining economic growth and significant investment.
The Minister welcomed the fact that the country had broken the investment record again this year, thanks to Hungary’s position as a meeting point for the largest Western and the strongest Eastern companies in the most decisive global economic process, the automotive revolution.
At the ground-breaking ceremony, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade said that Hungary is also attractive for investors because it has one of the lowest tax rates.
Szijjártó pointed out that
apart from Germany and China, Hungary is the only country in the world to have the manufacturing base of all three premium German car brands.
Furthermore, Hungary currently has the world’s third largest electric battery manufacturing capacity and the fifth largest export capacity in this field.
The Minister also pointed out that South Korean companies are now the third largest investor community in the country, and in 2019 and 2021, the East Asian country received the most investments. He said that bilateral trade turnover reached a record high of five billion dollars for the first time last year, and that the volume of trade has increased by a further 17 percent this year, so another annual record is expected.
In September, the largest ever investment was announced in Hungary, worth some HUF 3,000 billion (EUR 7.4 billion). The world’s largest battery manufacturer, China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL), had chosen Hungary to build its second European plant after two and a half years of negotiations, following huge international competition, and will directly create 9,000 new jobs in Debrecen.
Featured photo via Pexels and MTI/Balázs Attila