Presidents Tamás Sulyok and Xi Jinping agreed that good political ties and mutual trust were at the heart of expanding economic, trade, investment and personal relations. The leaders said the upgrade of the Budapest-Belgrade railway line and the direct flights between Budapest and seven Chinese cities were implementations in practice of those principles. Hungary is also a beneficiary of China’s visa exemption programme, they noted. Ties in education resulted in 2,481 Chinese students studying in Hungary in the 2022/2023 academic year, showing the growing popularity of Hungarian universities among them, they said. Hungary is also the only country in Europe to have a bilingual Hungarian-Chinese elementary and secondary school where the pupils are taught subjects in both languages, and Confucius Institutes operate in Hungary’s five largest cities, they added.
Meanwhile, Hungary has taken large strides to support the green transition of the car manufacturing industry. Chinese battery manufacturing giant BYD’s decision to build its first European plant in Hungary would add further momentum to that process, they said. And CATL’s 3,000 billion forint (EUR 7.7m) investment in Debrecen, in eastern Hungary, is the country’s largest green-field investment, they noted.
At the meeting, Xi expressed thanks for the „warm welcome and expressions of true friendship”. He wished Hungary every success during its upcoming EU presidency, adding that he hoped the two countries’ ties would be further deepened and pragmatic cooperation expanded. Xi invited Sulyok to Beijing, and the Hungarian president accepted his invitation.
At a government press briefing, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office, Gergely Gulyás, said Xi’s decision to visit Paris and Budapest was a sign of Hungary’s growing weight in the world. He slammed international media for employing „double standards” by „painting the visit to Paris as right and that one to Budapest as wrong”.
Gulyás noted that Chinese GDP, which was 20 years ago one-fifth of the EU’s, has surpassed that of the entire bloc by now, and this showed the EU’s slipping competitiveness and China’s „enormous journey in economic growth”.
In 2004 only fifteen of the world’s largest companies were Chinese; that number grew to 135 by 2023, Gulyás said. The country single-handedly produces 18% of the world’s GDP, he said. Gulyás said it was in Hungary’s interest to attract as much Chinese investment as possible. Hungary pursues the principle of connectivity in international cooperation, and the government would like to be able to conclude mutually beneficial deals on the highest-quality products possible, he said.
While four-fifths of Hungary’s investments come from Europe, it welcomes companies from all over the world, including the US and South Korea, he said, adding that all investments that created jobs and brought capital to the country were in Hungary’s interest and contributed to growing wages here.
In connection with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit, Gulyás said China’s economy is the world’s second largest, and it had a good chance of becoming its strongest within a decade. „China needs markets … and it is interested in having as many capital investments as possible in EU countries. Adopting an anti-China position deteriorates the EU’s competitiveness,” he said, noting that China’s economy in the past two years grew by 700%, as against 80% in the US and 30% in the EU.
Asked whether Chinese companies would contribute to the Paks nuclear power plant expansion, he noted that besides the Russian contractor, US, German, and French companies were involved in the project, and China was not expected to have any significant role.
Asked about the issue of freedom of speech in connection with an incident involving „Chinese people wearing red caps” who had questioned an opposition Momentum MP regarding an EU flag as well as the concealment of a Tibetan flag during the presidential visit, Gulyás said an investigation should first ascertain „if such things in fact happened”, adding that only Hungarian police had such powers in the country. Regarding the war in Ukraine and China’s related peace plan, he said Hungary alone could not establish peace, and the US and China would have an important say.