Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, has announced that Hungarian-American bilateral trade set a new record, exceeding 9 billion dollars last year, while US investments continue to flow into Hungary.
Speaking in Washington, DC, on Thursday, the foreign minister noted that the United States is Hungary’s biggest export market outside the European Union. Since 2014 the Hungarian government has provided financial support to 111 big American investments, a foreign ministry statement quoted Szijjártó as saying. Currently, 1,700 US companies employ a local workforce of over 100,000, the minister said, highlighting substantial US investments in car manufacturing, electronics and services sectors as well as in research and development, including the pharmaceutical and IT segments. US companies now form the second biggest group of foreign investors in Hungary and have always played an “important role” in keeping the economy on a growth path with their broad range of activities, Szijjártó said. He added that those companies were drawn to Hungary by the low tax rate and political stability in the country. Szijjártó said he will meet members of the US-Hungary Business Council later in the day to discuss future investments in Hungary. He called US-Hungarian cooperation a “real success story, with the exception of political cooperation”.