Hungary's minister of foreign affairs and trade held talks with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. FM Szijjarto said good cooperation may bring great benefits for both sides.

Hungarian FM Peter Szijjarto checked in with a social media post from New York on Wednesday night, local time.

In his video message, he underlined that he and his Chinese counterpart had agreed that neither party has an interest in a negative relationship between China and the European Union.

„Perhaps there is a third actor in world politics or the world economy whose interests lie in bad relations between China and the European Union, but this is certainly not in the interest of either of the two parties,”

he explained, pointing out that both sides stand to profit significantly from strong cooperation.

He then highlighted that Hungarian-Chinese collaboration was a win-win situation, always based on mutual respect. Beijing never imposed any political conditions on economic issues, which laid the foundation for that trust.

„Based on this trust, we urge with a clear conscience that the European Union also maintain a similar and effective cooperation based on mutual respect and benefits with China,”

he stated.

According to some calculations, Chinese economic activities currently yield around a third of the global economic growth, Mr Szijjarto pointed out. Speaking about Hungary-China relations, he said Hungary greatly benefits from its cooperation with China based on mutual respect and mutual advantages, thus maintaining this partnership is in the country’s interest. He highlighted as an example that after 2020, the highest number of investments will come to Hungary from China this year again. In the next few days, Hungary will launch its largest-ever investment project worth 3,000 billion Hungarian forints (7.34 billion euros), to be accomplished by the Chinese CATL company in the east Hungarian city of Debrecen.

He said he received assurances from Chinese FM Wang Yi that China highly appreciates a competitive investment climate and stable political-economic conditions, and will therefore continue to encourage Chinese companies to consider Hungary as a European economic foothold.

„Large-scale Chinese investments can ensure that , as a local exception, we can keep Hungary’s economy on a growth trajectory in Europe’s current economic environment facing recession,”

FM Szijjarto was quoted by Hungary’s state news agency (MTI) as saying.