Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said the cars of the future will be made in Hungary, too.
After the signing of a strategic cooperation agreement between the government and Chinese vehicle maker BYD in Budapest on Thursday, PM Orbán said Hungary needed partners to enter the age of electromobility and highlighted the country's strategic cooperation with China, the electromobility technology leader. He added that Hungarian-Chinese ties were now more intensive than ever before.
PM Orbán noted that Hungary had earlier joined Hungary's Belt and Road Initiative and highlighted an invitation by Chinese President Xi Jinping during a visit to Budapest for Hungary to participate in the modernization of China's economy.
PM Orbán said Hungary had adopted a strategy of connectivity in the global economy and pursued "intensive and pragmatic" ties with all of the global political power centres. If Hungary is to achieve its economic goals, the country needs to keep its ties with China at the strategic level and develop them further, he added.
PM Orbán said the government aimed to make Hungary a "meeting point" for investment, capital, technology and trade between the East and the West.
PM Orbán said Hungary had always been opposed to European Union tariffs on Chinese products and had pressed for a return to economic cooperation based on mutual respect.
Bilateral trade between Hungary and China has doubled in the past ten years, while China has become one of the top investors in Hungary, he said. Chinese investments have become an "indispensable engine" for Hungary's economic growth, he added.
He also pointed to big infrastructure projects Hungary is working on together with China, including the upgrade of the Budapest-Belgrade rail line, the V0 ring railway around the capital and a crude pipeline between Serbia and Hungary.
In addition to building its manufacturing plant in Szeged (SE Hungary), Orban said BYD would bring a development centre to Hungary that would create 2,000 jobs for highly trained local professionals, mostly engineers.