Within the framework of the meeting of the Hungarian-Serbian Joint Economic Committee on Thursday, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó and Serbian Minister of Economy Goran Knežević discussed preparations for the Hungarian-Serbian inter-governmental cabinet meeting due to begin in the south Serbian city of Niš on Sunday.
Following the meeting, Mr. Szijjártó told the press that Serbia is Hungary’s strategic partner from both an economic and security perspective, and accordingly Budapest will continue to support Belgrade’s European integration. “As it has so far, Hungary will continue to strive to achieve the most rapid possible accession process for Serbia”, he said.
The Foreign Minister highlighted the fact that Serbia affords the most extensive rights to Hungarian ethnic communities within the Carpathian Basin and the Western Balkan country not only provides minority rights to the Hungarian minority up to the level expected by the European Union, but much broader rights.
“It is important with relation to economic relations between the two countries that the Serbian party did not voice any objections to Hungary implementing an economic development plan specifically aimed at Vojvodina”, the Minister pointed out, explaining that within the framework of the Vojovidna Economic Development Programme the Hungarian Government is providing 20 billion forints (EUR 46.5M) in non-returnable funding to Hungarian businesses in Vojvodina, in addition to which it is also making available 30 billion forints (EUR 97M) in preferential, low-interest loans.
Mr. Szijjártó highlighted the fact that the Hungarian Government has already provided a total of 3 billion 30 million forints (EUR 9.8M) to over 2400 applicants from the agriculture, tourism and small and medium-sized enterprise sector during the first phase of the Programme. “Our philosophy is that Hungarian national communities must be reinforced on site and at home, and making these communities strong also requires making economic resources available”, the Foreign Minister said.
Mr. Szijjártó explained that the Hungarian Government has introduced economic measures that will enable trade cooperation between the two countries to further increase. Three National Trading House representations were recently opened in Serbia, in Belgrade, Novi Sad (Újvidék) and Subotica (Szabadka), in addition to which Hungary’s export-import bank has also opened an office in Belgrade.
Thanks to the opening of new border crossing stations, trade flow increased by five percent by the end of August compared to last year’s record figure of 1.8 billion euros, while Hungarian exports exceeded 840 million euros. Next year, two more border crossing stations will be opened at Bácsszentgyörgy (Đurić) and Kübekháza, the Minister said of future plans.
Mr. Szijjártó called attention to the fact that OTP bank will be opening a new regional head office to mark Monday’s session of the Hungarian-Serbian inter-governmental cabinet in Niš. With relation to Hungarian investments, the Foreign Minister highlighted the fact that Hungarian oil company MOL remains the second largest company on Serbia’s fuel trading market and pharmaceuticals company Richter is also continuously expanding its market share. In addition, an agreement was reached on the fact that Hungarian electricity supplier MVM and its Serbian counterpart will be further tightening their cooperation in future.
The most important cooperative investment project is the Budapest-Belgrade railway line, which also received significant attention at the China and Central-Eastern European Summit in Riga two weeks ago. The Chinese-Hungarian joint venture which will manage the realisation of the Hungarian stretch has been incorporated and Hungarian national railway company MÁV has already contracted the company to perform the task, in addition to which loan negotiations are also underway with China’s export-import bank. According to plan, the tender for the main developer of the Hungarian stretch of the railway line will be published in March and the agreement with the winning contractor will be signed in June once the loan negotiations are concluded.
Mr. Szijjártó said the fact that the EU tender for the renovation of the Szeged-Subotica-Baja railway line had been duly submitted was a success.