Hungary is interested in increased international cooperation with China, Mihály Varga, minister for National Economy, has said.
Attending the 7th China-CEEC Summit (16+1 Summit) in Budapest, Varga said that as a “highly open economy” and a part of central-eastern Europe, “which is considered the engine of growth in the EU”, Hungary is keen on forging closer ties with the Far East.
The minister said it is an increasingly common view among experts that the global economy is in a low-growth trap. He said that one way to break out of it could be by having national governments support economic policies that promote growth.
Hungary made the decision to pursue such a policy years ago, Varga said. A strict fiscal policy introduced in 2010 has allowed Hungary to keep its budget deficit under 3 percent of GDP in recent years and the public debt is also decreasing, he said.
Hungarian-Chinese trade relations are strong and bilateral trade turnover exceeded 7.1 billion USD last year, up 8.2 percent from 2015.
Péter Szijjártó, minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said Hungary has set a realistic goal of becoming the central European region’s top exporter to China as well as China’s top investment destination in the region.
Data from the first eight months of the year indicate that Hungarian exports to China rose by 26 percent compared with last year’s export growth rate of 25 percent. The volume of Chinese investments in Hungary has exceeded 4.1 billion USD, Minister Szijjártó added.