“Hungary is establishing a port and logistics base in Trieste to enable Hungarian enterprises that export abroad to be able to ship their goods rapidly and without hindrance”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in Mogyoród on Friday.

At the opening ceremony of the V4+ Logistics Forum, Mr. Szijjártó announced that Hungary will be establishing a port and logistics centre on a 32-hectare area of land in Trieste, Italy. “Thanks to the investment project, which will cost between 60 and 100 million euros, the Government will also be creating the necessary infrastructure conditions to enable Hungarian companies to transport their goods to the maritime exit by road or rail”, the Minister said, adding that the Government is expected to sign the sale contract in early July.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade said that thanks to strengthening Polish-Hungarian economic cooperation, Polish airline LOT has chosen Budapest as its second base of operations, and as a result of a series of negotiations that is currently coming to a close, LOT will be launching a direct air passenger service between Budapest and Seoul. The Minister stressed that in the interests of improving Hungary’s logistics competitiveness, the country must close its infrastructure gap with Western Europe, which is derived from historical differences. With relation to this, he highlighted four areas: the development of north-south infrastructure, increasing the number of border crossing points and railway links, the construction of a high-speed railway line, which is currently missing from Central Europe, and the exploitation of the advantages deriving from Chinese initiatives relating to the Eurasian Trade Zone.

Mr. Szijjártó spoke about the fact that until 2024 the Government will be realising major development projects relating to the whole Hungarian road and rail network, spending a total of 3200 billion forints (EUR 9.9 billion) on road development and 1500 billion forints (EUR 4.63 billion) on rail development by 2022. The Minister said that the 229-kilometre Hungarian stretch of the Via Carpathia trade and transport route proposed by Poland, which crosses Central Europe in a north-south direction from Lithuania to Greece, will be fully completed by the Hungarian Government by 2022, enabling road travel via motorway along the whole length of the Košice (Kassa) – Miskolc  – Debrecen – Nagyvárad (Oradea) route. Within the framework of cross-border development projects, the new Danube bridge at Komárom (Komárno) will be completed by the end of next year, as well as the dual carriageway across the Slovakian-Hungarian border, which will connect Budapest and Bratislava. He added that the Government will also be commencing the construction of another new bridge across the River Ipoly this year.

With relation to Eurasian business opportunities, Mr. Szijjártó said that Hungary must make use of the Chinese commercial plan developed for Europe and Asia and must provide the fastest rail transport route from the Greek ports towards Western Europe. “For this reason, the Hungarian Government is also placing major emphasis on the development of the Budapest-Belgrade railway line”, he noted.

(MTI)