Hungary becoming “a cheap assembly base of polluting Chinese companies”?

Hungary should support more competitive and higher value-added auto industry investments instead of becoming “a cheap assembly base of polluting Chinese companies”, the opposition Tisza Party said on Wednesday.

Eszter Lakos, an MEP of the party, told MTI that a European Parliament debate covered the crisis of the EU’s auto industry. Lakos said she had told the EP that the competitiveness of auto industry companies which employ tens of thousands of Hungarians was important to Tisza.

She accused the Hungarian government of increasing the vulnerability of Hungary’s economy by supporting Chinese companies over European ones.

Lakos said that by the summer of 2024 the output of Asian electric battery plants had fallen by more than 30 percent in a year.

“Hungary must not be allowed to become a cheap assembly base for polluting Chinese companies,” she said, urging support for more competitive and higher value-added auto industry investments that offered better pay.

She added that whereas in other EU member states that joined after 2004 domestic value-added in auto industry exports averaged over 50 percent, in Hungary it had fallen to 32 percent from 39 percent since 2010.

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