“Yet another Indian automobile industry company is bringing its factory to Hungary, and a Hungarian manufacturer of lightweight houses will be establishing a joint venture company in India”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó told Hungarian news agency MTI by telephone following several meeting in New Delhi.

“India has become a global superpower in both an economic and political sense. The country’s economic growth was 7.3 percent last year. Growth for this year and next year are also both expected to exceed 7 percent”, Mr. Szijjártó said. In his opinion, it is obvious that India is the developing country with the fastest growing economy and it is no accident that more and more Indian companies are achieving greater and greater market success in Europe, which in turn encourages them to invest in Europe. “Hungary’s goal is for Indian enterprises that are successful on the European markets to bring their new investments here, and especially for Indian automobile industry companies that are successful on European markets to bring their production centres to Hungary”, the Minister explained.

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“We have already achieved success in this respect, because two Indian automobile industry companies, Apollo Tyres and the SMP Group, have already realised the largest ever greenfield investment projects in Hungary in 2014 and 2015”, he said.

“The Indian Sona Group, which manufactures metal components for the automobile industry, has so far only had factories in India, the USA and Germany, but has now decided to construct a factory in Hungary with a total investment of some 4.2 billion forints (EUR 13.3M). This will lead to the creation of 130 new jobs in Polgár, Hajdú-Bihar County”, Mr. Szijjártó announced.

The Hungarian Foreign Minister reminded the press that the construction of Apollo Tyres’ plant is currently underway in Gyöngyöshalász, where production will begin next year, while the SMP Group is also considering new investments in addition to its existing plants in Mosonmagyaróvár and Kecskemét. “The negotiations on these will soon draw to a successful close”, he declared.

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The other areas in which Hungary has achieved success is the construction industry, Mr. Szijjártó said. “A decision has been reached on the construction of 20 million units of social housing in India. The National Building Construction Corporation (NBCC), which has been entrusted with realising the project, will be signing a contract with Hungarian lightweight house manufacturer Grémond Hungary Limited on Tuesday. They will be establishing a joint venture company, applying Hungarian technology and using Hungarian materials in a factory that will be constructed in India, which will be involved in the house construction programme”, the Minister told the press.

“We also discussed relations between India and the European union. It is Hungary’s firm standpoint that the European Union must immediately recommence trade talks with India, which began in 2007, but were halted last year. “It is also in Hungary’s interests that as few as possible bureaucratic obstacles should hinder economic relations between the EU and India in view of the fact that Hungary realises some 600 million euros in annual trade with India and there are already 2 billion US Dollars of Indian investment in Hungary”, Mr. Szijjártó explained.

Mr. Szijjártó told the press that he and his Indian hosts had also agreed to cooperate in the process of UN reform and that India would be supporting Hungary’s bid for membership of the UN Human Rights Council for the period 2017-2019.

(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister/MTI)