“Hungary is ranked 23rd among the European Union member states with regard to trade turnover with South America, but the Government is striving to achieve a better position”, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Deputy State Secretary for Szilveszter Bus said at a press conference prior to the 2nd Hungary – Latin America Forum in Budapest on Friday.
2.3 percent of Hungary’s exports currently go to South America and Africa, Mr. Bus explained, adding that the Visegrád Group countries are also taking part in the Forum and the intention of the Hungarian party is to become the engine for trade relations between the region and Latin America.
The Deputy State Secretary highlighted the importance of reinforcing government relations with the countries of South America, adding that the economic crisis had not weakened the region, with some countries achieving 3-6 percent economic growth each year. Over 70 million people in the region have been successfully helped out of deep poverty over the past ten years, he added.
Eximbank is providing a $3.7 million credit line to help Hungarian companies export products to the area, the Deputy State Secretary continued. Hungarian products from the medical technology, pharmaceuticals and information technology sectors are expected to be highly successful on South American markets, for example.
Ministers of Foreign Affairs from several countries are taking part in the first government section of the Forum, business panel discussions involving representatives of the business community will discuss problems relating to intelligent cities and a healthy society, while the Forum’s third unit will be the education panel.
With relation to the latter, Marketing Director of architectural software company Graphisoft Péter Richter highlighted the fact that there is high demand from universities for state of the art technology, and the latest generation of graduates who are in command of up-to-date knowledge and skills is just entering the job market.
Graphisoft has opened subsidiaries in Mexico and Brazil to date. Mexico has annual GDP of 1.232bn US dollars, while that of Brazil is 3.259bn and the whole continent is home to some 588 million people. Graphisoft will be generating some 500 million forints (EUR 1.6M) in income from Latin America this year and has achieved total income of 1.2bn forints (EUR 3.85M) from the region over the past four years, Mr. Richter told the press.