Hungarian exports are to reach 100 billion euros by the end of the year, from 71 billion in 2010, an increase of almost fifty percent, it has been revealed.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Parliamentary State Secretary Levente Magyar said in 2010 the foreign trade surplus was 6 billion euros but had increased to 10 billion euros last year.
The state secretary made the remarks during his opening speech at the Hungarian Export Day foreign trade event held in Budapest on Monday, where China was the guest of honor.
“Hungary’s economy has been gaining strength since 2010. Unemployment is currently the 4th lowest within the EU, the rate of GDP growth is amongst the highest, and the volume of investment increased by 25 percent during the first six months of this year," he pointed out.
“The guest of honour of Hungarian Export Day is China, which is one of the most dynamically developing export markets. One of the priority goals of Hungary’s foreign trade strategy is to reinforce economic relations with China, and Hungarian exports to China have doubled since 2010, while the number of Hungarian enterprises exporting to China, four fifths of which are small and medium-sized enterprises, has increased by 50 percent during the same period," the state secretary highlighted.
“The performance of the some one thousand Hungarian enterprises that are exporting to China must be further increased, and more opportunities must be created for them," he added.
The state secretary also said that Chinese economic presence in Hungary had increased significantly in recent years, with the total value of Chinese working capital investments exceeding 4 billion USD in 2016.
Chinese Ambassador to Budapest Tuan Chie-lung stressed that economic and trade cooperation is extremely successful between the two countries. Bilateral trade flow was 5.72 billion USD from January to July of this year, which represents a year-on-year increase of almost 17 percent.
Hungary is China’s third largest partner in Central and Eastern Europe, and Hungary holds the largest number of Chinese import licences from among the countries of the region.