“In addition to wanting to further expand and modernise their Hungarian investments and capacities, American companies also plan to increase the ratio of research & development within those investments”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in Washington following talks with the directors of several major American corporations.

In a statement to Hungarian news agency MTI in the small hours of Wednesday morning, Hungarian time, the Minister said he had met with the leaders of 16 large American companies, including General electric, Google, ExxonMobil and AT&T. “The corporations are happy with Hungary’s business and investment environment and have an extremely positive opinion of our economic policy decisions that are based on common sense, and primarily low taxes”, the Minister stated. Mr. Szijjártó pointed out that American investors are one of the important pillars of American-Hungarian relations and represent the second largest investor community in Hungary. “The 1700 American enterprises currently operating in Hungary now provide jobs to 105 thousand people”, the Minister said. “Cooperation with American companies is extremely important from the perspective of the change in era of the Hungarian economy, during which it is moving forward into a development-orientated period”, he added.

“American companies in Hungary are creating jobs that represent a high level of added value, as a result of which they play an important role in moving the Hungarian economy forward into a new dimension”, he added. During his meetings, Mr. Szijjártó assured American corporations that they are making the right decision when coming to Hungary in view of the fact that Central Europe has become the engine of European growth, as proven by the fact that last year trade flow between the countries of the Visegrád Group (V4) and Germany was 73 percent higher than German-French trade flow and 80 percent higher than trade flow between Germany and the United States.

“A further advantage is that via their Hungarian investments American companies are also improving their global competitiveness, in view of the fact that the vast majority of their Hungarian production is destined for export, i.e. the global market, and they are able to successfully market them”, the Minister stated. “All this contributes to the fact that although Hungary is in 92nd place among the world’s countries with relation to its population, it is the 34th largest exporter, which contributes to a major extent to keeping Hungarian economic growth at a level exceeding 4 percent”, Mr. Szijjártó said.

(MTI)