Next stage to include tourism, manufacturing

With economic cooperation between China and Hungary attaining higher levels in recent years, market watchers are confident the two sides will scale up cooperation in fields like manufacturing, tourism and regional connectivity in the next stage.

Referring to Hungary as an "increasingly important force in supporting China's economic cooperation with Central and Eastern European countries and beyond", Zhao Ping, dean of the Academy of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, said China and Hungary have been making full use of their unique advantages in industry, capital and talent to reinforce their business ties.

Zhao said a number of Chinese businesses, including Huawei Technologies, BYD, China National Chemical Engineering Group and Wanhua Chemical Group, have already built a market presence in Hungary, creating a large number of jobs, and China's commitment to a path of green, low-carbon and sustainable development is in line with the development direction of the central-east European country.

CPMC Holdings Ltd, based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, is a subsidiary of Beijing-headquartered COFCO Group, China's largest food trader in terms of sales revenue. The company announced in late September it is building a packaging material factory in the industrial park in Mako, Hungary, with an investment of 65 million euros ($68.66 million).

This investment will enable CPMC to manufacture 1 billion aluminum beverage cans annually, catering to the needs of multinational beverage manufacturers and brewers. Covering an area of 24,000 square meters, the facility will supply products to the company's partner plants in Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Austria and create 120 new jobs.

With China making more efforts to ensure the successful construction of the Hungary-Serbia railway, the first pair of steel tracks was laid for the Hungarian section in late May, according to information released by China's State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council.

The 152-kilometer Hungarian section is being jointly built by China Railway No 9 Group and China Railway Electrification Engineering Group, two subsidiaries of State-owned China Railway Group, along with their Hungarian partners. It started operation in July 2020 and entered the construction stage of civil engineering in February 2022.

The Hungary-Serbia Railway is a landmark cooperation project between China and Central and Eastern European countries and also serves as a docking project between Chinese railway technical equipment and the EU Technical Specifications for Interoperability, said Wang Pangke, president of the Hungary branch of Beijing-based China Railway Electrification Engineering Group.

Once the line is operational, travel time between the capital cities of Budapest, Hungary and Belgrade, Serbia will be reduced from eight hours to about 3.5 hours, Wang added.

After seeing a surge in the number of Chinese tourists visiting Hungary during the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays, Peter Varfi, consul general of Hungary in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, said his country pays particular attention to Chinese tourists and strives to maintain a good relationship with them, as bilateral relations are at an all-time high.

In 2019, which was a record-breaking year for Hungarian tourism, there were 280,000 Chinese visitors among 16.9 million visitors, Varfi said.

"In Central Europe, there is fierce competition among countries to attract Chinese tourists, who tend to be big spenders and whose contribution to the host countries' economic growth is considered invaluable. We hope that through further tourism promotion in China, we can help more tourists know more about Hungary's national conditions and cultivate richer interest in Hungary's history, culture and recreations."