Hungarian citizens can continue to travel to the United States without a visa, it was agreed upon by Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó and the executives of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Monday in Washington.

In a statement to Hungarian news agency MTI, Mr. Szijjártó said: “There are just 36 countries around the world, whose citizens do not require a visa to enter the United States”. He also added that the parties had agreed on the list of Hungarian legislative measures required to secure the long-term sustainability of visa-free travel, and these will be introduced in future.

“The two administrations have a particularly deep level of understanding with relation to security Issues. Both regard the protection of their country and citizens as one of their priority duties, and their most important task to be maintaining the right to decide who can enter their country and who they want to coexist with. Both countries are also making a major effort to successfully protect their borders”, Mr. Szijjártó declared.

The Minister also told the press that the Hungarian and U.S. export-import banks have concluded an agreement on the joint financing of investment and development projects. “This will result in Hungarian and American enterprises being able to launch joint projects on the Hungarian or U.S. market, or on the markets of third countries, with the application of more development funding, more credit and more loan guarantees”, he said.

“Investors from the United States represent the second largest investor community in Hungary. The 1700 American enterprises currently operating in Hungary provide jobs for 105 thousand Hungarians. The United States is Hungary’s second largest export market outside the European Union, with 3.5 billion dollars in goods and services exported to the USA last year”, Mr. Szijjártó continued.

“According to the agreement concluded today in Washington, Hungarian and U.S. enterprises will also have more financing available for investment projects that they realise jointly on the markets of third countries. This means that the products of large American corporations manufactured in Hungary will be able to reach even more points around the world, enabling the creation of even more jobs for their Hungarian subsidiaries”, the Minister explained.

“The success story of cooperation between Hungary and the United States is fundamentally based on the economy and on relationships between people. The two agreements concluded today represent a step forward within both these fields, and will serve to improve relations between the two countries even further”, Mr. Szijjártó emphasised.

(MTI)