“Economic relations between Australia and Hungary have never been so close; the two countries realised one hundred million dollars in trade flow during the first two months of the year, for the first time in history”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said on Thursday following a video meeting with Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne.

In a video recorded following the talks, which was also sent to Hungarian news agency MTI, Mr. Szijjártó highlighted: “In the interests of the further development of trade relations, Hungary is a strong supporter of the earliest possible conclusion of a free trade agreement between the European Union and Australia”.  “We expect Brussels to not slow down these free trade negotiations during the global pandemic”, the Minister stated.
Mr. Szijjártó said the parties were also able to celebrate a major economic success during the talks, in view of the fact that an agreement was recently signed enabling Australia to store part of its strategic oil reserves outside Australia, and Hungarian oil company MOL has won the opportunity to store 50 kilotons of Australia’s strategic oil stocks. “Negotiations are also underway on the ‘reservoiring’ of further Australian strategic oil reserves in Hungary”, he added. “This clearly indicates that it is worth developing international economic cooperation even during the time of the global pandemic”, he noted.
The Minister also spoke about the fact that although Hungary and Australia are particularly far apart geographically, the two countries are nevertheless facing very similar challenges. “Thanks to strict restrictive measures, the Australian government has also been able to flatten the epidemic’s growth curve, and as a result has been able to prepare its healthcare system for the global pandemic, and is now carefully easing these restrictive measures while strictly monitoring the consequences”, he explained.
Mr. Szijjártó said he and the Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs had agreed that nothing will be like it was before following the epidemic and “it is important for us to draw the conclusions and consequences”. “In the upcoming period, it cannot occur that a whole continent is so vulnerable with relation to the manufacturing of protective equipment, as currently”, he stated. “A way must be found to ensure that production capacities are created worldwide that provide a suitable security of supply in such a situation”, the Hungarian Foreign Minister said.

(MTI)