“Protecting Christian culture is important to both Hungary and Russia”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó highlighted on Kossuth Radio’s “Sunday Paper” show.

“We have succeeded in establishing cooperation with Russia with regard to a highly important international political issue of an urgent nature: the protection of Christian communities”, Mr. Szijjártó explained. “Hungary and Russia are both mobilizing significant resources in the interests of protecting Christian culture and communities”, he said. “The two countries have now agreed to jointly reconstruct a monastery in Syria, and also to jointly finance the construction of a large bakery that enables the secure bread supply of a city”, he said, citing examples.

The Minister also said that a very important industrial cooperation agreement had been signed during the visit to Budapest this week by Russian President Vladimir Putin. “We have succeeded in acquiring the largest foreign order in the history of Hungarian rail vehicle manufacturing; we will be shipping 1300 railway cars to Egypt within the framework of Hungarian-Russian industrial cooperation. The value of the contract is over one billion dollars”, he said. “An agreement was also reached on the fact that the hydrofoils operated by Mahart will be refurbished and modernised, also within the framework of Hungarian-Russian industrial cooperation”, he also stated.

“When we hold negotiations with Russia’s leaders, energy issues clearly govern the agenda”, Mr. Szijjártó highlighted. “We are currently in a ‘comfortable’ situation in view of the fact that never before in the history of Hungary have the country’s gas storage facilities been totally full”, he said, adding: “Accordingly, we are already negotiating with relation to next winter”. The Minister explained that the agreements necessary to enable Hungary’s largest pharmaceuticals producer, Richter, to achieve further business success in Russia have also been successfully concluded, since that the company will be realising a 15-million-dollar investment project thanks to the fact that one of its most important products has been included on the list of pharmaceuticals that are subsidised by the Russian social security system. Mr. Szijjártó also reported on the fact that Hungary has also achieved further success thanks to investments by its food industry and agricultural enterprises within the field of animal feed production.

(MTI)