“Thanks to its achievements within the field of state-of-the-art technology, Hungary has been given the opportunity to take part in one of China’s most important hi-tech events as guest of honour”, Minister for Innovation and Technology László Palkovics said in a telephone statement to Hungarian news agency MTI from Shenzhen in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong after opening the Hungarian pavilion at the 21st China Hi-Tech Fair (CHTF) innovation and technology expo.

The Minister partly attributed Hungary’s exclusive invitation to the fact that over the past nine years the country has shifted towards state-of-the-art technology within the fields of both industry and services. “The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has also corroborated the results of these efforts in view of the fact that the organisation’s latest reports place Hungary in top position beside Germany and Demark with relation to including the highest hi-tech content in its products”, he pointed out.

“In addition, this year the two countries are celebrating the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations, in view of the fact that Hungary was one of the first countries to recognise the People’s Republic of China”, he added.

This year, the Hungarian pavilion is built around the topic of the “reality-virtuality continuum”, bringing visitors closer to Hungarian innovation and scientific achievements via awareness-raising solutions. With the help of an intelligent wall made up of screens, visitors to the pavilion can get to know Hungarian inventions, and can discover Hungary’s results within the fields of self-driven vehicles and laser research via interactive solutions. In the pavilion, visitors can try out the Budapest University of Technology’s smart Rubik’s cube, the solving of which can be followed by several visitors at once thanks to it being linked to a screen.

This year the exhibition, which lasts until 17 November, is showcasing pioneering technologies and products from the fields of electronic information, internet plus, energy-saving and environmental protection, new materials, biomedical sciences, electro-optics, smart cities, artificial intelligence and modern manufacturing. 3356 exhibitors took part in the expo last year, presenting over ten thousand innovative products and services, while the number of visitors exceeded half a million.

Mr. Palkovics held several talks during the course of the day in the interests of further deepening Hungarian-Chinese technological and science cooperation. He held negotiations with the directors of BYD, which has been operating an electric bus manufacturing company in Komárom since 2017, on how the company could become involved to an even greater extent in the development of electric vehicles in Hungary. He also held talks with Chinese genomics company BGI, which is the world’s frontrunner within the field of gene sequencing, the Minister told MTI. On Wednesday, Mr. Palkovics also met with the Mayor of Shenzhen, with whom he discussed the establishment of a practical-orientated education and research exchange programme operating with the involvement of enterprises that are already present in Hungary and Shenzhen.

“In view of the difference in size between Hungary and China, it may be advantageous to narrow down cooperation between the two countries to certain Chinese cities with relation to some fields, and Shenzhen, which has a population of 12.5 million, could provide excellent opportunities with relation to state-of-the-art technology”, Mr. Palkovics said, explaining that there are over 5500 major corporations operating in the city, which is known as one of China’s hi-tech centres, and some 90 thousand enterprises that are involved in the IT sector, including Huawei, ZTE, BYD and Comlink, which are already present in Hungary. The Minister stressed that he and the Mayor of Shenzhen had agreed to continue talks in the interests of developing a structure for cooperation between Hungary and Shenzhen within the framework of existing Hungarian-Chinese cooperation.

(MTI)