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SZIJJÁRTÓ: HUNGARY PROMOTING ECONOMIC GROWTH IN BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

 

Hungary is committed in its support for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s European Union accession, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Friday, adding that there were Hungarian experts aiding the process. Hungary also promotes economic growth in the region, he said at a joint press conference with Staša Košarac, Bosnia’s minister for foreign trade, noting that the government has launched an economic development programme in Bosnia’s autonomous Serb Republic. Fully 768 local farmers and businesses have been supported with a total of 11 million euros through the scheme, which they could use to buy Hungarian agricultural machinery, Szijjártó added. An agreement has been reached on the launch of another round of support worth a total 17 million euros in early June, he said.
Szijjártó welcomed that bilateral trade turnover reached a record 600 million euros last year. The involvement of Hungarian businesses in the installation of solar farms in Bosnia and Herzegovina will be important to boosting trade, he added. Meanwhile, Szijjártó said both Hungary and Bosnia and Herzegovina were interested in the war in Ukraine ending as soon as possible.
Both countries see energy security as a priority, and the TurkStream gas pipeline is key for both of them, Szijjártó said. He said that to guarantee the region’s energy supply, the EU could no longer afford to be “passive” when it came to the capacity expansion and upgrade of southeast Europe’s energy infrastructure.