Chinese Companies to Have a Crucial Role in Hungary’s Economic Breakthrough

Several market-leading Chinese giants will start production in Hungary this year or early next year, which will make a major contribution to making 2025 the year of breakthroughs in the Hungarian economy, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in Budapest on Thursday.

Speaking at a press conference ahead of the meeting of the Hungarian-Chinese Joint Economic Committee, the Minister emphasized that both sides benefit a lot from the cooperation between the two countries. Therefore they intend to further develop it in the spirit of the strategic partnership agreement signed last year, which covers all areas.

He pointed out that

in 2020, 2023 and 2024, Chinese companies brought the most investment to Hungary. In our country, 54 modern Chinese large-scale investments worth HUF 7,000 billion (EUR 17.3 billion) have been created in the last ten years with the support of the government, directly creating more than 30,000 new jobs.

“And these large Chinese investments have made it possible for Hungary, after a long time, to become not a follower but the global leader of a great technological revolution,” Péter Szijjártó said, referring to the electric transformation of the automotive industry.

As an example, he recalled that electric car giant BYD’s first European factory will start production in Szeged (south Hungary) early next year, while CATL, which is building one of the continent’s largest electric battery plants in Debrecen (eastern Hungary), will start production this year. In addition, Huayou Cobalt (supplier of cobalt and its associated products) will start production in the summer and Semcorp (specializing in the development and manufacture of advanced materials; a major supplier to CATL and BYD) in the autumn.

Mr Szijjártó announced that the parties have now confirmed their mutual willingness to attract R&D and service investments from China to Hungary, which could accelerate the transformation of the economy, following large-scale manufacturing investments.

Hungary is now the number one investment destination for Chinese companies in Europe, and likewise, Budapest has become the air logistics hub for Chinese exports to Central Europe,”

he emphasized. “The Budapest airport handled record cargo traffic last year, with more than half of this traffic coming from large Chinese e-commerce companies. Around 95 percent of the goods thus shipped to Hungary are forwarded to other countries,” he continued. “We are the absolute leader in Central Europe in terms of air traffic, with 37 cargo flights connecting us to nine Chinese cities every week, and 21 passenger flights every week between seven major Chinese cities and Budapest,” he added.

Finally, the Foreign Minister said the European Union’s imposition of tariffs on the Chinese electric car industry was a huge mistake, which he said had led to isolation. “We want Europe to return to common sense and not hinder cooperation between European and Chinese operators,” he stressed. He added that the European Commission had also made a big mistake by not negotiating with the new US administration on customs cooperation. He argued that the tariffs on US car imports should have been lowered from the current 10 percent to 2.5 percent, the reverse of the current rate in the US.

Via MTI, Featured photo via Hungary Today