A close cooperation with China is Europe’s vital interest and it is a great success that a major Chinese bank has chosen Budapest as the location for its Central and Eastern European regional headquarters – Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó stated at the opening ceremony of the Budapest branch of Bank of China.

A close cooperation with China is Europe’s vital interest and it is a great success that a major Chinese bank has chosen Budapest as the location for its Central and Eastern European regional headquarters – Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó stated at the opening ceremony of the Budapest branch of Bank of China.

"Europe has lost a part of its competitiveness. If it wants to regain it, it must develop the closest possible cooperation with regions of rapid economic growth, and especially with China. The Chinese-Hungarian cooperation is in line with this aspiration" – the Minister said.

Minister Szijjártó emphasized that the Hungarian government supports Beijing's efforts to increase the international use of the Chinese national currency, the Yuan. He also added that it is an important goal of the government for Hungary to be the first country in Central Europe, where a Chinese company wanting to enter the region’s market does so for the first time.

The realization of this aim is already on-going, he noted: from 2015 on Huawei will organise all its European exports from Hungary, ZTE will operate its European service centre in Budapest, and now Bank of China, which is one of the world's ten strongest banks, is setting up its regional centre here. Minister Szijjártó underlined that over the past ten years Hungarian exports to China have increased eleven-fold, and the volume of Chinese investments in Hungary now exceeds USD 3.5 billion. He highlighted that a great number of the Chinese investments implemented in Hungary are high-tech related and have a high added value.

The Minister added that China would like to further increase its exports and will seek to transport the majority of its products destined for the Western European markets via Central Europe. Another goal of the government is to attract a majority of Chinese foreign direct investments that are to be realized in Central and Eastern Europe to Hungary, he said.

The Vice President of the Bank of China Li Zaohang in his speech at the opening ceremony pointed out that the Chinese and Hungarian economies complement each other well, which was one of the reasons why Bank of China has decided to establish its Central and Eastern European regional centre in Hungary.

(Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade)