At a trade forum organised by the Romanian-Hungarian Business Circle Association (Rocham) in Budapest on Thursday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Parliamentary State Secretary said that “Romania is one of Hungary’s important strategic partners; trade flow between the two countries reached 7.3 billion euros last year, a 2.8 per cent increase compared to the previous year”.
László Szabó said that the balance of foreign trade is tipped towards Hungary, with Hungarian enterprises exporting twice as much to Romania as Romanian companies do to Hungary; he said that in his opinion Romanian enterprises also have significant opportunities to increase their exports to Hungary. Among the most important areas of cooperation, Mr. Szabó listed the energy industry, transport and tourism, and highlighted the fact that Romania is one of the favourite destinations for Hungarian working capital; Hungarian enterprises have invested over half a billion euros in Romania to date.
The Parliamentary State Secretary also said that cooperation is already close; Hungarians have founded some twelve thousand enterprises in Romania, and Romanian companies employ some 2,500 people in Hungary.
Among the largest Hungarian-owned companies already operating in Romania, Mr. Szabó mentioned Hungarian oil company MOL, which has a fifteen per cent share of the Romanian market, and OTP Bank, which operates 125 branches in Hungary’s eastern neighbour; in addition to these, Hungarian pharmaceutical company Richter has also created many jobs in Romania.
Mr. Szabó stressed that it is extremely important to reduce the region’s one-sided, practically one hundred per cent dependency on Russian gas and oil. From this perspective increasing the capacity of gas interconnectors between the two countries is important, as it allows large quantities of natural gas to be transported in either direction as required, he explained.
The Parliamentary State Secretary also reported that the number of Romanian tourists visiting Hungary is continuously increasing; Romania is currently eighth on the list of tourists’ countries of origin.
Romania’s ambassador to Hungary Alexandru Victor Micula stressed that relations between the countries developed particularly dynamically in 2015. He highlighted the new section of southern motorway completed last year, which resulted in the first direct motorway link between the two countries. By the end of December the new stretch of motorway had been used by some 2.5 million people, he said.
Bilateral trade flow also broke all previous records in 2015, he continued. Romanian companies invested some 200 million euros in Hungary and there are currently seven thousand Romanian SMEs operating in Hungary, Ambassador Micula said, adding that there is still room for growth and the exploitation of further opportunities.