This is the reason why Chinese President Xi Jinping came to Hungary – UPDATE

Addressing a press conference during which the leaders of China’s Huawei and Hungary’s 4iG signed a cooperation agreement in Budapest, Márton Nagy, the national economy minister, said ties between China and Hungary had “always been strong” and would remain “unbroken in the future”.

Xi and Orbán’s “fruitful” discussions

Nagy described discussions between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and government members as “fruitful”, noting that during Xi’s visit to Budapest, numerous economic agreements were also signed.

These cover rail development, electromobility, telecommunications, energy and nuclear energy, he added.

Nagy noted that Huawei and 4iG are prominent players in telecommunications.

A joint statement by 4iG and Huawei said the aim of the agreement was to enhance 4iG’s cloud services by establishing a new joint cloud service for domestic companies and large Chinese and Far Eastern companies operating in the region.

The pact will also help Hungary to continue developing in an industry that harmonises with its manufacturing-centric economic structure, he said.

He noted that Chinese investments in manufacturing, electric car and battery production and IT here were breaking records, and this was underpinned by similar unprecedented levels of financing. Infrastructure, too, was crucial to the flow of goods and data, and cooperation of the two companies would aid this, he added.

Gao Weijie, chief executive of Huawei Technologies in Hungary and the Western Balkans, said Huawei was steadily increasing its investments thanks to Hungary’s “fair, transparent, objective and friendly market environment”.