“Hungary is a leading supporter of OECD efforts to make international trade and investment more flexible, liberal and free of restrictions, and at the same time is calling for the rational and conditional application of development funding to enable developing countries to eliminate the causes of global challenges that place migration pressure on the European Union”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó in the recess of the Paris-based development organisation’s annual Ministerial Council Meeting (MCM) on Thursday.
According to Mr. Szijjártó, is taking on the position of Council Vice-President together with Japan and Finland, under the Presidency of Chile, at the best possible time in view of the fact that the topic of this year’s Meeting was the reduction in the rate of growth of the global economy and world trade.
The Hungarian Foreign Minister reminded the press that growth in global trade has remained under 3 percent during the past five years and such a slow rate of growth has an extremely negative effect on the world’s economic growth. This is damaging to Hungary, which has a very open economy, he pointed out.
Mr. Szijjártó’s said he believes the main causes of falling levels of growth are measures and sanctions that restrict international trade as well as global challenges such as migration, climate change and wars, for which the international community is yet to find a suitable response.
In Hungary’s view, the billions of euros of resources that the OECD spends in developing countries should be applied in a way that leads to the elimination of the reasons causing the migration crisis in Europe. Accordingly, Hungary would like to have a greater influence on OECD development policy in future to assure that “funding also serves to reduce migration pressure on Europe”, he said.
The Minister indicated that to this end Hungary had submitted its application for full membership of the OECD Development Assistance Committee.
“Hungary is deeply integrated in the global economy: its export to economic performance ratio is 100 percent and the level of invested foreign working capital now exceeds 85 billion euros. Hungary is in first place in Central Europe with regard to the ratio of foreign capital to economic performance, despite the fact that the level of international investments has fallen by 10 percent worldwide compared to before 2015”, the Minister stressed. “According to the OECD’s survey, Hungary has the fifth best regulatory system in the world among the organisation’s member states with regard to foreign investment, and this is also mirrored by the ratio of foreign investment”, he added.
Among the tasks still awaiting Hungary, the Foreign Minister highlighted the increase in added value in the production of large international companies operating in Hungary. In the interests of achieving this, Hungary is reinforcing its vocational training system, digital knowledge and infrastructure “to enable the country’s economic development to move forward into a new phase in which the economy is driven not solely by production, but also by research & development and innovation”, Mr. Szijjártó said.