“The success of Hungarian-Israeli economic relations is extremely important with regard to maintaining the growth trajectory of the Hungarian economy”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó declared in a statement to public media in Jerusalem on Thursday.

On the sidelines of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s official visit to Israel, Mr. Szijjártó met with Minister for Regional Cooperation Cahi Hanegbi and General Director of the Israeli Foreign Ministry Juval Rotem.

Reporting on his meetings, the Minister stressed: “To what extent we are able to take part in advancements that lead to the development of a modern and innovative automotive industry    is decisive with respect to the future success of the Hungarian economy”. “And Israel is one of the world’s number one locations for the research and development projects that determine the future of the innovative automotive industry, which is based on self-driven cars, electromobility and the everyday use of artificial intelligence”, he explained.

“This is why it is particularly significant that there are already 200 Israeli enterprises operating in Hungary, providing jobs to five thousand Hungarians”, he stated.

The Minister stressed that the parties wish to continue the successful innovation cooperation begun last year, within the framework of which a two million euro joint innovation fund was established, from which two joint Hungarian-Israeli research & development and innovation projects were funded last year. “We would like to increase the fund’s budget by 400 percent this year”, he added.

Mr. Szijjártó also said that bilateral economic cooperation will also be highly important with regard to Hungary’s energy security in view of the fact that the 800 billion cubic metre natural gas field discovered off the coast of Israel, one of the transport routes of which will lead to Central Europe, realistically enabling Israeli gas to also contribute to the security of our energy supply from 2024-25, “will appear as a new factor and a new reality” with relation to Central Europe’s energy supply.

(MTI)