Chinese BYD’s Investment to Create 100 New Jobs in Fót

Chinese electric car manufacturer BYD is investing HUF 10 billion to set up a battery assembly plant in Fót, creating 100 new jobs in the first round, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó announced in Shenzhen, China, on Wednesday.

According to the ministry’s statement, the company will further increase its presence in Hungary by building a plant in Fót (a town 17 kilometers north of the edge of Budapest), where, Péter Szijjártó stressed, electric batteries will not be manufactured, only assembled.

The investment, worth around HUF 10 billion (EUR 26.9 M), due to be completed soon, will initially create 100 new jobs,

with the government providing around 10% of the funding (HUF 1 billion, EUR 2.69 M), he noted.

“This investment will increase Hungary’s role in the European electric car transition, strengthen Hungary’s leading role in this economic process, contribute to job security in Hungary, and help Hungary attract new capacity in its most important industry of the future,” he said.

Szijjártó underlined that

BYD is now the world’s largest manufacturer of electric cars and the second largest player in electric batteries,

and is also a global leader in telecommunications and information technology.

He pointed out that the company manufactures electric buses in Komárom (on the northern border of Hungary, along the Danube River), which are extremely popular in Hungary and the rest of Europe, with a share of around 80 percent in public transport in London, for example.

He stressed that in Hungary, with the support of the government, municipalities are constantly replacing their old polluting buses with electric ones, and BYD accounts for about 42 percent of new vehicles put into service.

This means that in Hungary, the Chinese have become the absolute market leaders in electric buses,”

he said.

The Minister also emphasized that the electric car industry will define the coming years and decades of global economy. He described this transition as an irreversible process that will create a virtually entirely new industry.

“This is good news in the sense that without the electrification of road transport, it would simply be impossible to meet environmental targets, as 14% of all emissions worldwide come from road transport,” he stated.

He said that investment in this sector would determine how fast countries would develop in the long term.

“The countries that can attract a larger share of investment in electric cars will grow much faster than others, create and protect many more jobs, and be much better able to raise the technological level of their own economies, not to mention making a much greater contribution to the world’s environmental goals,” he said.

Minister Szijjártó also met, among others, the Mayor of Shenzhen, the founder of the battery company Sunwoda, and the CEO of BYD.

Featured image: Facebook/BYD Cars – Build Your Dream