Hungary and the Central and Eastern European region are becoming ever more dominant also from an economic point of view, and so they offer ever expanding opportunities to foreign investors.
Finance Minister Mihály Varga pointed out that the operation of the Hungarian financial sector is successful, and each year in the past few years its return on equity has been above ten per cent.
Since 2010, the Hungarian economy’s performance has risen by 30 per cent which is double the EU average, Mr Varga highlighted. He said thanks to the attractive economic and business environment, direct foreign capital investments in the country have amounted to more than EU 74 billion in the past five years. The significance of the Chinese economy has increased considerably in recent years; based on the latest data, in Hungary at present China is the fourth largest investor from outside Europe, the Minister said, mentioning that financial cooperation is one of the fastest growing areas of bilateral Hungarian-Chinese relations.
These include the extremely fruitful cooperation with the Bank of China, Hungary’s successful joining of the activities of the Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the opening of OTP Bank’s representation in the Chinese capital, the Budapest-Belgrade railway line credit negotiations which are about to be concluded, and active Hungarian involvement in various monetary funds.
At the talks, the parties discussed that, in the interest of the facilitation of Hungarian-Chinese transactions and supporting the projects of the Belt and Road Initiative, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) is looking into the possibility of opening a representation in Hungary. The parties agreed that the ICBC’s presence in Hungary would further strengthen Hungary’s role as a regional financial centre. The Chinese financial institution established in 1984 – which is the world’s largest bank with an asset portfolio worth some four thousand billion US dollars – has 426 representations in 47 countries and regions; the bank is present in 15 European countries.
(Ministry of Finance/MTI)
