Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto receives an interview in Budapest, Hungary, April 18, 2017. China's development will have important effects on Europe's future, and the Sino-European cooperation is expected to help promote the competitiveness of Europe, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto said. (Xinhua/Yang Yongqian)
BUDAPEST, May 2 (Xinhua) -- China's development will have important effects on Europe's future, and the Sino-European cooperation is expected to help promote the competitiveness of Europe, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto said.
"According to our point of view, worldwide politics as well as world economy have come to a turning point, and in that turning point and after," China will play "a great role," Szijjarto told Xinhua in a recent interview.
The Hungarian top diplomat said, "The development of China is going to have an effect on Europe's future development itself, and we view the cooperation of China and Europe of an utmost importance."
Szijjarto said that he expected the Belt and Road Initiative to materialize itself in the form of concrete investment projects, the sooner, the better, as China's investments, and the export of European goods toward China have an essential role for the continent's future.
According to the minister, the current deficiencies in infrastructure make European goods less competitive on the Chinese market, compared with goods coming from some other regions.
"We expect that Chinese investments will appear in larger number in the future in the European area and when Chinese companies think about enlarging their European presence, we wish that they would think primarily of Hungary," he pointed out.
Szijjarto also underlined that the relations between China and Hungary have never been so good as presently, from political, economic and cultural aspects.
The official identified the automotive industry as one of the fields in which China and Hungary could beef up cooperation.
"As for the automobile industry, we have just inaugurated the first European factory of BYD in Hungary, and Hungary is the flagship of the European auto industry," he stressed, pointing out that with 9 percent, Hungary has the lowest corporate tax rate in the EU.
Szijjarto also considered the food industry as a flagship sector of the Hungarian exports to China.
"Because of the very strict Hungarian food sanitary regulations -- our constitution guarantees GMO free products in the agriculture and the food industry -- Hungarian food products can become interesting for the new, more demanding Chinese customers," he said.
About the project between Hungary and China, Szijjarto said that the Budapest-Belgrade railway's "every single element conforms with the relevant EU regulations."
