Hungary and South Korea have signed a memorandum of understanding on boosting their trade and investment development cooperation.
After signing the agreement, Levente Magyar, the foreign ministry’s parliamentary state secretary, said Hungary counts on South Korea as a partner in shifting its labor-intensive economy to a knowledge-intensive economy. South Korea has become one of Hungary’s most important foreign trade partners and a leading foreign investor over the past years, Magyar said. The government is working towards ensuring that South Korean companies that already have an industrial base in Hungary create higher value-added production here, he said. Magyar noted that some 1,000 South Korean students study at Hungarian universities, most of them studying medicine. The two countries are working to deepen cooperation between their universities, he said. Youngjin Jang, vice minister for trade, industry and energy, said Hungary is for South Korea of outstanding importance which is reflected by the fact that Hungary was the first country with which it established diplomatic ties. The two countries “elevated their economic ties to a strategic level in 2021”, he said. The agreement signed on Tuesday is aimed at expanding the fields of cooperation to include car manufacturing, electronics, biotechnology and medicine, Jang said.