“Last year, Hungary succeeded in breaking all previous foreign trade records: the Hungarian economy produced its highest ever level of exports and succeeded in achieving its highest ever foreign trade surplus”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó declared.
In a telephone statement to Hungarian news agency MTI following several meeting in Liechtenstein, the Hungarian Foreign Minister said the Central Statistical Office’s final foreign trade figures for last year had been published during his visit, and proved that Hungary had succeeded in remaining competitive even amidst extremely rapidly changing global political and global economic conditions.
Never before in the history of the Hungarian economy had a foreign trade surplus of ten billion euros been successfully realised. Our exports also increased by 3.1 percent”, Mr. Szijjártó said.
“In addition, a record level of new investment projects were launched in Hungary thanks to the investment promotion system: 71 major companies decided to invest in Hungary, representing a total of 3.2 billion euros in working capital”, he added.
In Vaduz, Mr. Szijjártó met with, amongst others, Prime Minister and Minister of General Government Affairs and Finance Adrian Hasler, and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Education and Culture Aurelia Frick. This is the first time that a Hungarian Foreign Minister has been on an official visit to Liechtenstein.
Mr. Szijjártó and his negotiating partners agreed that the two countries would cooperate closely to ensure that the right to determine the level of tax in Europe remains within the sphere of competence of Member States, and that they cannot be striped of this right by Brussels.
“It is in Hungary’s interests to ensure that there can be no future European regulation that could undermine its competitiveness, and accordingly it will be fighting against Brussels’ ambitions to harmonise European tax law, meaning that they would like to take away member States’ right to determine their own levels of taxation”, the Minister explained.
“In this regard, Hungary has found a perfect cooperating partner in Liechtenstein, which also bases its competitiveness on low taxes, and which as a member of the European Free trade Association and the European Economic Area is also against any attempts by Brussels to take away countries’ rights to determine their levels of taxation”, he added.
“Accordingly, in future we will be working together in close cooperation with Lichtenstein against any and all European regulations that would prejudice the rights of European countries to determine their own levels of taxation”, the Hungarian Foreign Minister declared.
Mr. Szijjártó pointed out that Lichtenstein has an extremely competitive economy with a high level of technology. “This is one of the reasons why the agreement we have concluded, according to which the University of Lichtenstein and Hungarian universities will in future be working in close cooperation, and on student scholarship programmes and guest lecturers, is so important”, he stated.
“Similarly to Hungary, Liechtenstein also has an interest in maintaining free trade worldwide. The Hungarian economy is also an open economy, just like Liechtenstein’s, and exports the majority of the goods it produced, and accordingly in future the two countries will be acting jointly in the interests of any and all regulations that serve to maintain the system of free trade throughout the world”, he added.
Mr. Szijjártó also came to an agreement with his negotiating partners with relation to the fact that the two countries will be developing close cooperation within the United Nations in view of the fact that they both represent very similar standpoints concerning the reform of the organisation. He pointed out that Lichtenstein is extremely active in the United Nations and recently initiated the launching of an international mechanism aimed at uncovering and punishing war crimes in Syria.
“This initiative has Hungary’s fullest possible support and we are contributing 50 thousand euros towards the starting up of the mechanism. The two countries will be cooperating in a similar manner in the interests of protecting Christian communities in war zones”, the Hungarian Foreign Minister said.