“French pharmaceutical and automotive industry companies are bringing 40 billion forints (EUR 122.5 million) in investments to Hungary in accordance with the agreement concluded at Thursday’s business meetings”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in a telephone statement to Hungarian news agency MTI from Paris, here he held talks with French pharmaceutical and automotive industry companies on the sidelines of a ministerial meeting of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

“The pharmaceutical and automotive industries play a key role with relation to the Hungarian economy’s transition to a new dimension; these are the sectors of industry that are driving the shift to the modern, new global economic era to the greatest extent in Hungary”, the Minister emphasised.

“Hungary is the world’s 19th largest pharmaceutical industry exporter and realises the 20th highest quantity of exports with relation to the automotive industry, which is particularly notable if we take into account the fact that we are ranked 92nd in the world rankings based on the size of our population”, Mr. Szijjártó stated.

“French enterprises play an important role in Hungary with relation to both the pharmaceutical and automotive industries, and French companies operating within these fields also play an important role from the perspective of the success of the Hungarian economy’s transition into a new dimension”, he explained.

“Hungary has achieved major success in both the pharmaceutical and automotive industries during the previous, traditional global economic era, and what we need now is for it to achieve similar success in both sectors of industry in the new, innovative era”, the Minister stressed.

“From this perspective, the 40 billion forints in investment to be realised in the near future by French enterprises, which are fundamentally focused on research & development, innovation and increasing the level of technology, will provide a great deal of assistance in enabling the competitiveness of the Hungarian economy to continue improving”, Mr. Szijjártó said.

(MTI)