Hungarian minister: pressure from Washington achieves goal in many European capitals!

Hungary is seeing a growing inflow of high value-added research and development investments, Péter Szijjártó, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, said in New York on Friday, adding that his talks with American business executives would be focused on promoting a “qualitative leap” in the economy.

The development of the economy requires a stable foundation, which the government started working on back in 2010 before going on to attract record investments each year, Szijjártó said ahead of talks with US business leaders.

This has allowed Hungary to become an important production centre in Europe’s most important industries such as the auto industry, the electronics sector and the chemicals and food industries, Szijjártó said. This was followed by a rise in high value-added services, and is set to be topped off with R+D, he added.

Szijjártó said he was scheduled to meet executives of IT and pharmaceutical companies in Boston, whose investments in Hungary would contribute to a “qualitative leap” in the country’s economy.

He said that over the past years, the focus had been on “quantitative leaps”, but with full employment having been realised and with the country on a growth path and having become a meeting point for Eastern and Western companies, it was time to focus on quality.

Meanwhile, Szijjártó said he is scheduled to take part in a panel discussion on the future of Europe at Harvard University.

He said he will talks about Europe’s declining influence, prestige and competitiveness “given that it was incapable of isolating a war, and has instead practically globalised it and . made it even more severe with weapons deliveries”.