“Economic cooperation between Hungary and Russia is reaping increasing benefits for the Hungarian economy”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó told public media in Moscow on Monday.

Prior to his meetings, the Minister explained: “Cooperation with Russia is extremely important from the perspective of the economy”.

“Before the European Union introduced its sanctions against Russia, after which Russia introduced its own measures in response, Russia was Hungary’s second most important economic partner, but today is only the twelfth”, he said. “Hungarian businesses have lost a total of some 7 billion dollars in export opportunities as a result of the trade restriction measures”, he added.

“This is why it is particularly important that following several years of decline we succeeded in achieving a 30 percent increase in bilateral trade flow last year, reaching 5.5 billion dollars”, he continues.

“Agriculture played an important role in this in view of the fact that four Hungarian agriculture and food industry enterprises have realised and put into operation major investment projects in Russia, as a result of which Hungary’s presence within the agriculture sector and its food industry exports have succeeded in making progress”, the Minister said.

“Similarly, Hungarian pharmaceutical companies are also playing an increasingly important role on the Russian pharmaceuticals market; for instance, 7 of Egis’s products are now market leaders and Richter also increased is turnover by 20 percent last year”, the politician indicated.

Mr. Szijjártó also noted that thanks to a Hungarian healthcare industry investment, Hungary will soon achieve a 15 percent share on Russia’s traumatological medical instruments market. He highlighted the fact that Hungarian bank OTP is also increasing its market presence in Russia and now employs over five thousand people in 134 branch offices.

“In addition, Russia continues to be one of the most important locations for oil production on the part of Hungarian oil company MOL, which currently has 1.3 billion dollars’ worth of investments in Russia and produces 5800 barrels of crude oil-a-day”, the Minister said.

In addition, he drew attention to the fact that there are also important tasks that must be performed in cooperation with the Russian in the coming days and weeks.

An agreement on the quantity of natural gas to be purchased from Russia in 2019 has already been concluded, some 4.3 billion cubic metres, “and the task now is to come to an agreement with relation to 2020 so we can assure the gas supply of Hungarian industry and Hungary’s population”, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade explained, adding that similar continuous negotiations are also underway with relation to the development of financial cooperation.

As an example, he cited the fact that Hungary is now the third largest shareholder in the Russia-based International Investment Bank, the Hungarian loan portfolio of which will soon reach 70 million euros.

In summary, Mr. Szijjártó said that progress has been made in the recent period within the fields of agriculture, healthcare and energy.

According to the Minister, the next step is to move cooperation forward into the next dimension with relation to added value, meaning that water industry and heavy industry cooperation must also catch up to the level of healthcare and food industry cooperation. The required negotiations are underway, and an agreement on the mutual acceptance of university diplomas is due to be signed in November, he said.

In reply to a question on the economic sanctions, the Minister also stated: “There are now increasing numbers of European countries that instead of extending the automatic extension of the sanctions would prefer to engage in dialogue and talk openly about the true effects of the sanctions”.

“According to the Hungarian Government, the global trade war that is on the brink of erupting necessitates fair cooperation between the eastern and western halves of Europe, based on mutual respect”, he said.

The EU also previously spoke about possible cooperation with the Eurasian Economic Union in positive terms and was developing plans for such cooperation, “but we are now very far from this, unfortunately”, the Minister pointed out.

Mr. Szijjártó explained that this is one of the reasons why it would be very important to maintain continuous dialogue between the EU and Russia, and between EU member states and Moscow, with relation to which he pointed out that the leaders of Hungary and Russia meet regularly, every year.

On Monday in Moscow, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó will be holding talks with Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov, Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova, First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Nikolay Fyodorov, Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak, and Managing Director of Gazprom Aleksey Miller.

(MTI)