Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said that Chinese companies are welcome to increase their investments in Hungary, and highlighted their significant contribution to his country's economic growth, during in an interview with China Media Group (CMG) in Beijing.
Chinese President Xi Jinping will pay a state visit to Hungary as part of his three-country, five-day Europe trip from May 5 to 10.
With this year marking the 75th anniversary of China-Hungary diplomatic relations, Szijjarto spoke to CMG in April to discuss the cooperation mechanism between the two sides. He believes that the global initiatives proposed by Xi also play a pivotal role in tackling security challenges.
"The world has been confronted with very serious security challenges just recently. In order to achieve peace, we need honest, sincere and respect-based cooperation among all the people. And therefore, such kinds of global initiatives which have been put forward by your President are very, very important," Szijjarto said.
Hungary welcomes investment from Chinese companies, particularly in electric battery production and other high-tech sectors, he said.
"Hungary has always been a front-runner when it comes to the automotive industry. And now five of the top ten global electric battery manufacturing companies have been present as well, three of them Chinese. We do believe that the changes in the global economy and global trade ahead of us require a much tighter cooperation between the East and West. From our perspective, the tighter the cooperation between the EU and China, the better. We can take a lot of benefit out of which the decision has been made that they would invest in Hungary. You know, they contribute a lot to the growth path of our national economy with this investment. So we are super happy with the state-of-the-art type of technological investments of Chinese companies to Hungary," Szijjarto explained.