“Hungary has concluded a strategic cooperation agreement in Chongqing with the Bohong Group, one of the world’s largest vehicle exhaust manufacturers”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó informed Hungarian news agency MTI in a telephone statement from China.
The Minister said Bohong was the sixth Chinese company with which the Hungarian Government has signed a strategic partnership agreement. The large Chinese corporation currently employs 1200 people in its Hungarian plant in Oroszlány, after having acquired Canadian company Wescast.
Mr. Szijjártó reported on the fact that the Bohong Group will be realising a new investment project worth 9 billion forints (EUR 29M) in Hungary, with which it will be installing the world’s most modern exhaust manufacturing technology in Oroszlány, and this is the largest Chinese automotive industry investment in Hungary to date.
The Minister highlighted the fact that on his current visit to China he had been accompanied by 1118 representatives of 69 Hungarian enterprises in view of the fact that a Chongqing-Hungary business forum is also being held in the major Chinese city, within the framework of which 13 business agreement will be concluded, primarily within the fields of IT, logistics and the food industry. In addition, a Hungarian food safety research centre will be established at the local university, because market demand for Hungarian food industry products in increasing rapidly thank the high-level Hungarian food safety standards.
Mr. Szijjártó emphasised that Chongqing is the most rapidly developing Chinese municipalities and a centre for the automotive and IT industries; one third of all the laptops in the world are manufactured here, and there are 400 automotive industry enterprises operating here.
“Cooperation between Hungary and Chongqing is founded on our similar economic profiles”, said Mr. Szijjártó, who also mentioned that trade flow between Hungary and the municipality had begun increasingly rapidly, achieving 170 million dollars last year, which represents an improvement of 57 percent, in addition to which Hungarian exports have also most doubled. The Minister highlighted the fact that the Municipality is in direct contact with Western Europe via the Chongqing-Duisburg railway line, along which the first trainload of goods from Hungary also arrived recently. Mr. Szijjártó informed the press that a logistics agreement would also be signed today, thanks to which some of Chongqing’s European exports will be arriving on the continent via Hungary.
In addition the Minister also said that his delegation had also signed an agreement with the Sichuan International Studies University, where a Hungarian department will be established that will be offering Hungarian language courses every academic year, and whose students will be spending one year in Sichuan and three years in Hungary.