Companies from the USA have been content with Hungary; the fact that more than 1500 US-based enterprises are active in Hungary and they employ some 100 thousand people aptly shows this, Minister of Finance Mihály Varga said after having a meeting in the Tesla headquarters in Fremont as head of a Hungarian business delegation.

The USA is the second largest foreign investor in Hungary in terms of both the value added produced by the Hungarian subsidiaries of US companies and the number of people employed. The Government continues to facilitate US investment in Hungary.

At the meeting, the Minister noted that 177 000 people were employed in the Hungarian automotive sector, which produced goods valued at HUF 8000bn (USD 29bn), which accounts for some one-third of the total volume of industrial output. Hungary is working to keep the strong positions it has achieved in the car industry; therefore it is in the interest of the country to bring in cutting-edge, next generation technologies, he pointed out.

In the period 2012-2016, the number of R&D experts in the car industry and the amount of R&D expenditures has doubled in Hungary. In the region, Hungary was the first country to have prepared a comprehensive e-mobility concept, aiming to reduce harmful emissions and improve the safety of the country’s energy supply, he added.

Mihály Varga has also met with managers of PACCAR Group, the holding company of, among others, DAF commercial vehicles. DAF Hungary Ltd has been on the top of the ranking for nine years now regarding “entry into service” statistics in the category heavy-duty vehicles, which constitute one-third of the total number of new vehicles sold in Hungary.

The company has managed to increase sales not only in Hungary but all across Europe, and the economic environment in Hungary has provided favourable conditions for steady growth.

(Ministry of Finance)