“Hungary is among the winners of the new economic era”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said on Tuesday in Budapest at a press conference prior to the official opening of the new office building of American-owned Flowserve Hungary Services Limited’s engineering centre.

The Minister highlighted the fact that companies that were previously present in Hungary with simple production and commercial activities are now increasingly bringing new workplaces to Hungary that represent a high level of added value, are which are related to more complex services, and to research & development.

Mr. Szijjártó told reporters that the investment in Budapest by Flowserve, which is already present in Debrecen and Veszprém, cost 3.26 billion forints (EUR 10.3 million), towards which the Hungarian Government is contributing 620 million forints (EUR 1.95 million) in non-returnable funding in view of the new engineering workplaces that have a high research & development content.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade also mentioned that 29 out of the 98 major new investment projects brought to Hungary last year were service, technological, or research & development centres. “never before have so many investments that represent such a high level of added value arrived in Hungary within the space of a single year”, he said, adding that salaries at the workplaces realised last year within the framework of major investment projects were on average 40 percent higher than in the previous year.

Mr. Szijjártó explained that Flowserve employs some 18 thousand people in 55 countries around the world, and achieved an annual turnover of almost 4 billion dollars last year. The company began commercial activities in Hungary in the 1990s, and opened a global service centre in 2016; it is present in Debrecen and Veszprém, and is now establishing an engineering centre in Budapest based on high added-value research & development.

The Minister highlighted the fact that Flowserve’s investment represents another step in Hungarian-American economic cooperation. As he explained, investors from the United States form the second largest investor community in Hungary after the Germans, with 15 percent of all foreign investment. The 1700 American companies operating in Hungary provide jobs for 105 thousand people. Last year, Hungarian exports to the USA increased by 11 percent, and trade low between the two countries exceeded 5.6 billion dollars, Mr. Szijjártó said.

At the press conference preceding the official opening of the new office building, President of the Flowserve Group Scott Rowe stressed that via the Budapest investment project the company is reinforcing its commitment to Hungary, and that the decision was influenced by access to services and the presence of a quality workforce thanks to Flowserve’s existing excellent relationship with the Budapest University of Technology. With relation to the development of the district, Mayor of Budapest’s 9th District János Bácskai stressed that investors are continuously arriving in the district.

(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister/MTI)