Direct flights to resume between Budapest and Beijing

Budapest (MTI) – Direct flights will resume between Budapest and Beijing from May 1, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in Budapest on Saturday.

The air services will be provided by China’s state-owned airline Air China, operating four weekly flights with A330 aircraft.

Szijjarto said the possibility of a stopover in Minsk, Belarus, was suggested at the talks, with the aircraft briefly stopping in Minsk on the way from Beijing to Budapest, though not on the way back to the Chinese capital. The minister said the new direct flights constitute further progress in the government’s policy of opening to the east and a new means of developing economic, trade, cultural and tourism ties between Hungary and China. He noted that direct air connection between Hungary and China was discontinued in March 2012 and talks to resume direct flights had been conducted since June 2014.

Szijjarto said Hungary’s exports to China rose 8 percent from a year earlier to a record 2.2 billion dollars last year, and the number of Chinese tourists visiting Hungary doubled between 2010 and 2014, reaching 90,000 last year.

Photo: iho.hu

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters