“Hungary has been a member of the elite club of 35 countries that is capable of exporting over 100 billion euros annually for three years now”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó declared on Tuesday in Tashkent at the official opening of the Uzbekistan-Hungary business forum.
“Our foreign policy is placing particular emphasis on reinforcing cooperation between the increasingly dynamically developing Central Asian region and Central Europe, which serves as the growth engine of the European Union”, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó underlined in the Uzbekistani capital.
The Minister felt it important to highlight the fact that there are no contentious issues between the two countries, and for this reason there are no barriers to smooth business dealings and negotiations. According to the Minister, in the recent period everything that we thought about the global economy has changed, and one of the elements of these changes is that regions that were previously looked down upon are now able to boast significant economic growth. “The role of growth engines has shifted to different geographic regions. Hungary and Uzbekistan represent two such regions”, Mr. Szijjártó said.
“In Central Europe, the rate of economic growth has exceeded double the European Union average, four of Europe’s five most rapidly expanding economies can be found within this region, and Hungary is proud of the fact that it was able to boast the most rapidly growing economy in the EU last year”, he underlined. “The competitiveness of the Hungarian economy is clearly indicated by the fact that while we are ranked 94th with relation to population, we can boast the world’s 34th highest export performance”, he added.
The Minister noted that despite the large geographical distance between Hungary and Uzbekistan, there are a host of common points between the two countries. “Both take part in the work of the Turkic Council”, he pointed out.
At the opening of the business forum, Mr. Szijjártó announced that during his visit to Tashkent important decisions had been made that facilitate the boosting of business relations between the two countries. “Eximbank is facilitating the establishment of the financial background for Hungarian-Uzbekistani business relations with a 100-million-dollar credit line, the number of road transit licences will be increasing to over 300 during the course of 2020 and from 2021 all road shipment permits will be tax free; Hungary is providing 30 scholarship places-a-year to enable Uzbekistani students to attend Hungarian universities, and several inter-university development projects will also be launched; for instance, one of Hungary’s largest universities will be establishing a campus in Uzbekistan”, Mr. Szijjártó stated.
The Minister also spoke about the fact that Hungarian enterprises are shipping 3000 ATM machines to Uzbekistan, while Hungarian pharmaceutical company Richter is already distributing over 100 registered pharmaceuticals in the country. “Agreements have been concluded within the fields of agricultural seed production, vegetable oil production, and grain storage and processing, in addition to which several projects are in preparation in which Uzbekistani enterprises will be using Hungarian technologies within the fields of border protection, water management, food safety, poultry farm development and even the introduction of carp”, he added.
“All this clearly shows that an extremely wide-ranging economic cooperation has come about between the two countries, to a degree that is must more diverse than expected, and as a result of this we can proudly state that trade flow has increased by 88 percent”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó underlined.
(MTI)
