Hungary will open five new embassies in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa in the next one and a half years.

At the conference of the Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade on the Southern Opening foreign policy strategy, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijártó said: If we are able to export more services - especially engineering knowledge, ICT and water management services – to the countries of Africa and Latin America, Hungary will have the opportunity to benefit from the recent economic growth of the region. Currently, 2.3 per cent of Hungarian exports go to Latin America and Africa; in contrast to this, German and the Dutch export reach almost 5 per cent, the Minister added.

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Mr. Szijjártó emphasised that in order to strengthen relationships, Hungary needs to increase its presence in the regions. Therefore, Hungary will open new embassies in Colombia, Peru, Angola, Ethiopia and Ghana.

Furthermore, the number of the Hungarian Honorary Consuls will be increase to 68 from 57 in the regions; there will be two new Honorary Consuls in Latin America and nine in Africa, he added.

The Hungarian Eximbank will open a USD 370 million credit line in order to enhance successful relations of Hungarian businesses in the regions concerned, Minister Szijjártó explained.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade said, the second-Latin America Forum to be held in October will provide an ideal occasion to deepen the inter-governmental, business and education cooperation with the countries of the region. He added that Latin America and Africa will also play an important role in the Hungarian Prime Minister’s programme in 2016.

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From the countries of the two areas concerned, Hungary has only four economic cooperation agreements in force, and therefore the aim is to increase the number of economic cooperations and to singe investor protection agreements and agreements on the avoidance of double taxation, the Minister stressed.

Mr. Szijjártó declared that the Eastward Opening strategy has proven to be successful; according to Minister “it has opened the doors ahead of economic actors”. The Southward Opening strategy follows the same pathway with the same goal: diversification of Hungary's export markets. „Seeking new markets in addition to the traditional ones is what common sense dictates”, he said.

Hungary’s traditional external market is the European Union: its share of total exports has even increased over the last years. This is good, but Hungary needs to diversify its export opportunities beyond the EU market, therefore the aim is to increase exports to the non-European countries up to one-third in in the near future, the Minister said. He added that this process will not have any negative impact on the EU markets. “It would be contrary to common sense if we increased the non-European export proportion and reduced exports to the European countries”, Mr. Szijjártó explained.

(Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade)