New investments announced in Hungary for almost EUR 60M

The government’s policy of opening to the East has turned Hungary into China’s primary investment destination in central Europe, Péter Szijjártó, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, said at the inauguration of a plant of Pex Automotive Systems in Szigetszentmiklós, near Budapest, on Monday. Meanwhile, Germany’s Bosch Energy and Body Systems is investing 18 billion forints (EUR 46.7m) in expanding its plant in Miskolc, in north-eastern Hungary, creating 170 new jobs, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, said on Monday.

Pex Automotive, a branch of Chinese car industry supplier Baolong, ploughed some 5.1 billion forints (EUR 13.2m) into the greenfield investment, Szijjártó said. The government supported the development with a 1.5 billion forint grant, he said. The investment brings the European headquarters of its electromobility strategy to Hungary, he said. The plant will also turn out products for the electric and intelligent vehicle industry, he said. Half of the plant’s electricity needs will be covered by solar panels, he said.

Hungary is Baolong’s third site outside China after the US and Germany, “so international competition for it was harsh,” he said. The production of Hungary’s automotive industry jumped by 31 percent last year, to over 10,000 billion forints, he said. In addition, the sector grew by an annual 24 percent in the first six months of 2023, compared with a record performance in 2022, he said. “We Hungarians stand by East-West cooperation. We are dismayed to see that voices calling for the artificial decoupling of the Chinese and European economies have gained strength lately,” he said. As bilateral between the EU and China comes to 875 billion euros a year, this could cause “damage the scope of which is impossible to foresee,” he said.

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Bosch to invest HUF 18 bn in NE Hungary plant expansion

Germany’s Bosch Energy and Body Systems is investing 18 billion forints (EUR 46.7m) in expanding its plant in Miskolc, in north-eastern Hungary, creating 170 new jobs, Peter Szijjarto, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, said on Monday. The government is supporting the investment with a 3 billion forint grant, a ministry statement cited Szijjarto as saying. Some 4.5 billion forints will go towards the development and testing of electric drive units, and 13.5 billion will be ploughed into capacity expansion, he said.

Szijjarto said innovative technologies were key to the success of national economies. Hungary spent a record 920 billion forints on research and development last year, he added. The number of employees working in R+D is around 95,000, expected to reach 100,000 soon, he said. Bosch, which employs nearly 20,000 people in Hungary, is a good example of how Hungary continues to draw investments in R+D as well as production, he said.

Meanwhile, “Bosch is buying products and services from hundreds of SMEs in Miskolc, so the capacity expansion is good news for Hungarian SMEs, too,” he said. Road traffic generates 14 percent of emissions globally, he said. “The question isn’t whether European car manufacturing is going to transition to electric vehicles; the question is which countries will win and which will lose out on that transition,” he said. “Not only has Hungary kept pace in the global competition, it has emerged at the global vanguard of electromobility,” he said.