High-speed railway will link Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland

The railway transport of Chinese goods offers profitable opportunities for the Hungarian railway system, Péter Szijjártó, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, told an event of railway association HungRail on Thursday.

Hungary has already started revamping the Budapest-Belgrade rail line with a view to transporting Chinese goods from Greek ports to Europe via Hungary, a statement of the foreign ministry cited Szijjártó as saying. While that project will be operational by 2025, it would also be “important to draw direct railway cargo traffic from China to the European Union to go via Hungary”, thus “monetising” the country’s geographical position, he said.

Such traffic would warrant further infrastructural development in the northeast of the country, such as the intermodal centre already under construction at Fényeslitke, he said.

The 12 billion forint (EUR 33.3m) investment

will be operational by the end of 2022, Szijjártó said.