“As a result of the latest investment by Bosch, Robert Bosch Power Tool Ltd. in Miskolc has been supplemented by a regional service centre, making it the largest manufacturer of power tools in Europe and the largest unit in the Bosch Group”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó announced.

“The total cost of the project is 1.6 billion forints (EUR 5.2 M), towards which the Government is providing 358 million forints in non-returnable funding.

According to the agreement concluded between the company and the Government, Bosch will be creating 205 new jobs in Miskolc”, the Minister added.

“This latest German investment is also an indication of the fact that Germany is Hungary’s most important economic partner. The Hungarian economy and the modern German machine industry are clearly intertwined”, he highlighted.

“Bilateral trade flow between the two countries was 47.6 million euros last year, breaking all previous records with relation to trade between the two countries, with trade flow increasing by an additional 6 percent year-on-year during the first six months of this year”, the Minister said.

According to Mr. Szijjártó, there is a new kind of competition underway in the world in hitch “the winner will be those who are quickest to understand the idea of industry 4.0 and digitalisation, and are also capable of implementing all this in practice; those who are able to forward the most rapidly in the research and development (R&D) competition”.

The Minister highlighted the fact that Bosch is one of the worldwide front-runners in the digitalisation and modernisation competition, employing 59 thousand people within the field of R&D.

He also pointed out that Bosch is giving Hungary a central role in its R&D strategy in view of the fact that the company spent 47 billion forints (EUR 154 M) on research and development in Hungary last year, an increase of 26 percent compared to the previous year. “In addition, the company is cooperating with 19 education institutions in the interests of training new workers. Bosch has become the foreign production company that employs the most people in Hungary today, with the number of people it employs now reaching 14,200”, he added.

Managing Director of Robert Bosch Power Tool Ltd. László Fükő told reporters: The regional service centre began operations last autumn, supplementing the R&D and productions activities of the power tool manufacturing plant in Miskolc. The centre is involved in sorting and shipping the products manufactured in Miskolc and the company’s other facilities, in addition to procuring and storing batteries and packaging materials.

The Managing Director also said that the agreement between the company and the Government had now been concluded and that the company wold be spending part of the state funding on wages. The project has thus been successfully completed.

According to Mr. Fükő, the funding is a recognition of Bosch’s job-creation capacity and commitment to the region of Northern Hungary, adding it was a success that the company had successfully employed 260 people instead of the 205 included in the original plan.

According to Fidesz Member of Parliament Katalin Csöbör, the fact that Bosch decided on realising the new investment in Miskolc was a success for the engineers and workers employed at the Miskolc plant. Robert Bosch Power Tool Ltd. was established in 2001 and the company is the Bosch Group’s largest European power tools manufacturer, according to the statement provided at the press conference.

Bosch has been present in Hungary since 1898. In the 2016 business year, the total turnover of the ten subsidiaries of the Bosch Group present in Hungary was 1149 billion forints (EUR 3.7bn), while its turnover in Hungary, which does not include trade between the group’s own subsidiaries, was 238 billion forints. The Bosch Group employs some 390 thousand people worldwide and achieved turnover of 73.1 billion euros in 2016.

(MTI)