Péter Szijjártó submitted the proposal of launching the Opening to the South strategy with a focus on Africa and Latin America from 1 July onwards to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade made this announcement in person on Thursday in Budapest at the club event of Pallas Athéné Geopolitics Foundation, which was founded by the Hungarian National Bank.
The Minister called the Opening to the East successful, which according to his words "opened the doors ahead of economic actors”. He added that this is the reason why he suggested that the foreign trade-oriented foreign policy should move to its next phase by the launch of the Opening to the South strategy.
Péter Szijjártó informed that four new embassies (Ecuador, Ethiopia, Ghana, Angola) and six trading houses (Ethiopia, Angola, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Kenya) will open within one year.
This year nine joint economic committee meetings will be held with the countries of the two areas and 660 scholarship opportunities will be made available at Hungarian universities to students coming from there, he announced.
In terms of the Opening to the East policy, the Minister emphasised that the focus on Euro-Atlantic Relations will always remain a priority from the point of view of the Hungarian national economy and foreign trade, nevertheless, the ties that Hungary has established with areas located in the East are sufficiently strong.
He explained that Opening to the East is not a Hungarian invention but something copied from the „big ones”: 43 percent of German exports, 46 percent of Italian exports and 22 percent out of the total Hungarian exports of USD 112.8 billion were directed to countries outside the European Union last year. 22.8 percent of German exports were directed to Eastern areas; this ratio was 12.4 percent in Hungarian foreign trade.
The latest data on foreign trade of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office reveals that exports to the East decreased by USD 1 billion; however, Péter Szijjártó drew attention to the fact that without the Opening to the East strategy, the loss due to the Ukraine crisis, the closing of the Nokia factory and the sanctions against Russia would have amounted to USD 1.6 billion.
The Minister also mentioned as a success that the volume of investments increased by 14 percent, to HUF 5,216 billion in 2014. 11 out of the 55 strategic partnership agreements were concluded with countries of the Opening to the East. The investments of these companies reached USD 6.4 billion and 4,900 new jobs were created since the start of this cooperation. In the end, Péter Szijjártó emphasised that Hungarian foreign policy is pro-Hungarian; its aim is to represent the interests of the national economy in the new world order.