Orbán’s minister: China sees Hungary as regional financial hub
Financial cooperation is a fast-growing area of Hungarian-Chinese relations, Mihály Varga, the finance minister, said on Wednesday after meeting banking heads in Beijing, noting that Hungary planned to issue a Panda bond in the second half of this year.
“Hungary is a bridgehead for Chinese banks entering the European financial market,” he said in a statement after consulting Bank of China, China Construction Bank and China Development Bank chiefs.
Chinese banks “have trust in the Hungarian economy”, he said, noting that several Chinese banks have selected Hungary as a base in recent years.
Varga added that Hungary has also entered the Chinese financial market, issuing government bonds on the Chinese and Hong Kong bond markets, thus ensuring the country had several financial pillars.
He noted that in 2021 Hungary issued the first ever Green Panda bond on the Chinese market and a green government bond worth 1 billion renminbi (EUR 128m), adding that Hungary planned to issue a Panda bond in the second half of this year too, with a view to strengthening the security of Hungarian debt management.
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Anyone putting their money in a Chinese or Russian bank deserves what they get when things go wrong. There is a lack of transparency in China when it comes to company financials and the Chinese government has a history of intervention in companies which have no recourse to the courts to protect them. At the moment there is a gargantuan real estate bubble the likes that has never been seen before that is bursting in China and you don’t want to have anything to do with a bank that has exposure to it. Trust Fidesz to bring the worst possible things you can ever get from China as long as there is a way for these politicians to make a few forints in their pockets off a deal. They couldn’t care less about the consequences for Hungarians.