“Agriculture was the driving force of Hungarian economic growth in 2016, Hungarian exports have been performing outstandingly for years now”, the Ministry of Agriculture’s Minister of State for Agricultural Economy György Czerván said on Hungarian M1 television’s Tuesday evening current affairs program.

“The value of Hungarian exports has increased by 40 percent wince 2010 and has been above 8 billion euros/year since 2012; agricultural imports are significantly lower than exports and agriculture’s foreign trade surplus has been around 3 billion euros for several years and represents 30 percent of the national economy’s total trade surplus”, he added.

“Cereal exports play a determinative role in Hungary’s agricultural exports, in addition to which the proportion of processed and semi-processed products has increased by 7 percent since 2010, and the goal is to further increase the ratio of products with higher added value in the future”, Mr. Czerván continued.

“90 percent of Hungarian agricultural exports go to the European Union, and of the non-EU countries to which Hungary’s exports, agricultural exports to Japan have increased by 50 percent since 2010”, the Minister of State told the press.

Mr. Czerván also spoke about the fact that pork products play the most significant role in exports to Japan, as do poultry products. “In Japan there is major demand for quality products that fully comply to food safety standards, and Hungarian products are exactly such goods”, the Minister of State said.

(MTI)