“The Hungarian-Turkish Joint Economic Committee adopted a nine-point plane at its closed session on Friday in Ankara, the implementation of which could enable trade flow between the two countries to step into a ‘new, quality dimension’”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó highlighted in a statement to Hungarian news agency MTI on Friday from Ankara.

Mr. Szijjártó confirmed that the parties would like to increase the current annual trade flow between the two countries of around 3 billion dollars to 5 billion dollars.

The Minister explained that according to one of the points of economic cooperation Hungary would be providing Turkish businesspeople and enterprises with the most preferential visa procedures possible.

The agreement also includes the fact that Hungary’s Eximbank will be opening a 255 million euro credit line to facilitate cooperation between Hungarian and Turkish enterprises. In future, Budapest will be asking for Ankara’s support for the market presence of Hungarian electricity company MVM and oil company MOL in Turkey. MVM is participating in the development of Turkey’s electricity infrastructure, while MOL is already in negotiations on introducing its products in Turkey.

In addition, Ankara will be promoting ad many Hungarian investments in Turkey as possible. On Friday, Mr. Szijjártó concluded an agreement with Turkish insulation materials manufacturer Ravaber, which will be realising a 22.5 million euro investment project in Miskolc. The factory will create 107 new jobs, towards which the Hungarian Government is contributing 5 million euros in nonreturnable funding.

Hungarian and Turkish research institutes are already cooperating within the field of agriculture, but the further encouragement of such cooperation is also on the agenda. The Turkish prime Minister has taken steps to increase imports of Hungarian cattle to Turkey, and the parties are working together to “prune” regulations that have an unfavourable effect on Hungarian sweetcorn exports.

Within the field of water management, Budapest Waterworks is in negotiation with regard to the construction of a water purification plant in Istanbul and on improving the efficiency of Ankara’s water system.

With relation to the nuclear power plant being constructed in the southern Turkish town of Akkuyu, Budapest would like to cooperate by enabling Hungary to train Turkish professionals, he added.

Within the framework of cooperation on innovation and research, the Hungarian and Turkish governments are launching a 155 million forint joint tender within the field of IT, agriculture and industry 4.0.

(MTI)