Hungary’s presence in the Latin-American region must be strengthened in order to further increase last year’s Hungarian trade surplus of USD 820 million and thus create more jobs, Deputy State Secretary for Prioritized Enterprise Relations Zoltán István Marczinkó said, following the opening of a business panel discussion at the second Hungary-Latin America Forum in Budapest.
He stressed the Government aims to increase the weight of Hungarian exports in the region, as in the first half of the year the volume of trade with the region was 2.8 percent higher compared to the previous year.
To this end, Hungary has strengthened the local network of foreign trade professionals: the number of trade attachés was increased and the Hungarian National Trading House has opened new representative offices in four Latin-American countries.
He added that several high-ranking representatives of various countries – Cuba and Paraguay – participated at the business panel discussion of the two-day Budapest forum. According to the overview of Cuba’s First Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade and Investment Antonio Luis Carricarte Corona, there is room to expand in the bilateral trade of raw materials, high added value products and pharmaceuticals products.
His counterpart from Paraguay, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Oscar Stark Robledo, emphasised that his country is awaiting Hungarian investors, as they are facilitating investment in high energy demand sectors because electricity is cheap in Paraguay. Last year’s total trade volume of USD 1625 million was dominated by the Hungarian exports of machinery, equipment and car industry products, he said.
Zoltán István Marczinkó pointed out that pharmaceutical industry cooperation projects which may be realized thanks to the forum will not only open up markets for Hungarian companies but these will also create several hundreds -- or even thousands -- of jobs in Hungary. Among other potential fields of cooperation he mentioned water and waste management, health industry, food industry, engineering know-how and innovative construction sector technologies.
(Ministry for National Economy)
