“The Government will be spending 4 thousand million forints (EUR 12.4bn) on road and rail development by 2022 in the interests of reinforcing the country’s logistical position”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said on Friday in Mogyoród, near Budapest.
At an event organised by the Hungarian Export-Import Bank (Eximbank) and Hungarian Export Credit Insurance Pte, the Minister announced that the Government will be spending 2500 billion forints (EUR 7.7bn) in the upcoming years to develop 900 kilometres of dual carriageway and motorway. 55 percent of the money will come from the Hungarian budget and 45 percent from EU funding, he added.
1500 billion forints (EUR 4.6bn) will be spent on rail development, including the modernisation of 900 kilometres of railway track. According to the Minister, the development projects will result in an additional 45 thousand in new capacity, in addition to which new vehicles will also be appearing on Hungarian railway lines. As a result, the total length of Hungary’s electrified railway track system will exceed 3300 kilometres.
Mr. Szijjártó mentioned the development projects aimed at expanding the country’s logistical potential that have already been completed, or are already underway, including the full electrification of the railway line connecting the Slovenian port of Koper to Budapest. He also said the new Danube bridge at Komárom is also under construction, and will be available for use by freight transport vehicle in the first quarter of 2020. Five new border crossing stations will be constructed in cooperation with the Slovakian Government, towards which EU funding has also been successfully applied for, thanks to which two new bridges will also be constructed across the River Ipoly. In addition, preparative work for the widening of the Hungarian stretch of motorway at Rajka has also begun: the road between Budapest and Bratislava will be widened to four lanes, he explained, listing ongoing development projects.
He pointed out that last week in Peking an agreement had been reached on the finalised schedule for the modernisation of the Budapest-Belgrade railway line. The project will take 2-2.5 years, after which a dual high-speed track will be available for the transport of goods arriving at Greek ports and destined for Europe within the framework of China’s Silk Road concept. Thanks to the new high-speed railway, these goods will pass through Hungary on their way to Western Europe, he pointed out.
The Minister also reported on the fact that the Prime Ministers of the Visegrád Group (V4) countries had agreed on preparations for the development of a high-speed railway line connecting Budapest and Warsaw via Bratislava and Brno, and the Hungarian Government has approved a budget of 1.5 billion forints for the project’s feasibility study. He also mentioned that an agreement had also been reached with the Romanian Government on the construction of a high-speed railway line between Budapest and Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár), and the Hungarian Government has approved a budget of 1 billion forints for the project’s feasibility study.
CEO of Eximbank Gergely Jákli stressed that logistics is indispensable for the further development of exports. Logistics provided 5.5 percent of Hungary’s GDP in 2017, he added. He also noted that in 2014 Eximbank entered the leasing market, in which it now has 1210 contracts with a total value of 114 million euros, 75 percent of which is derived from the logistics market.
(MTI)
