“Hungary views Morocco as a country that plays a key role in North African stability”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó told Hungarian news agency MTI.

The Minister explained with regard to his official visit to Rabat on Tuesday that he had been received by the Moroccan Prime Minister and Speaker of Parliament, had held talks with the Foreign Minister and will later be meeting with the ministers of tourism, foreign trade, energy and higher education.

“Morocco is a particularly stable country, which has a favourable effect on North African processes. What happens in the North African region also has an immediate effect on Europe, and accordingly Morocco’s stability is extremely important to the continent’s security”, he stressed.

“For this reason, disputes between Morocco and the EU must be resolved as soon as possible and the parties must return to the usual close strategic cooperation”, Mr. Szijjártó said.

The Minister highlighted that Hungary and Morocco had signed a comprehensive economic agreement thanks to which bilateral trade flow can be permanently kept above 200 million dollars, from which Hungarian enterprises will be able to profit in the upcoming period.

“An agreement was also concluded on the fact that Morocco will be the pillar of Hungary’s Africa strategy, meaning Hungarian technological developments will be realised via Morocco, which represents a huge market opportunity for Hungarian enterprises”, he explained, adding that Morocco will also be using Hungary as a base of operations for trade with Central Europe and the Western Balkans.

Mr. Szijjártó explained that the comprehensive economic agreement includes several areas. “A food safety agreement was signed, cooperation on agricultural technology is already extremely extensive, and Morocco is also counting on Hungarian companies within the field of forestry modernisation”, he listed.

“Within the field of water management, the North African country would like to involve Hungarian sewage treatment and city water system management companies”, he continued.

“Within the field of security cooperation, the exchange of anti-terrorism information is performed by the countries’ relative anti-terrorism institutions, but Morocco would also like to apply Hungarian border protection technologies to handle its major border defence challenges”, he pointed out.

The Hungarian Foreign Minister also said that Morocco was counting to a great extent on the Hungarian training of experts within the field of nuclear cooperation and on Hungarian solutions and technologies within the field of pharmaceutical radiology.

Mr. Szijjártó also said that there will be a direct air passenger route between the two countries beginning in October, with Ryanair launching two flights a week between Budapest and Marrakech, which will lead to a marked increase in tourism.

“The parties also concluded an agreement on higher education cooperation, according to which 100 Moroccan students-a-year will receive scholarships to study in Hungary, and there is great interest among Moroccan students with regard to Hungarian institutions of higher education,” Mr.  Szijjártó told the press.

(MTI)