Hungary, UK to establish bilateral business council

Budapest, September 29 (MTI) – Hungary and the United Kingdom will establish a bilateral business council in the Hungarian embassy in London to promote bilateral trade ties, Hungary’s foreign minister announced on Thursday.

The business council will serve to help coordinate and promote the business activities of Hungarian companies in Britain and the activities of British firms in Hungary, Péter Szijjártó said at a Hungarian-British business forum.

Szijjártó said the Hungarian government aims to make sure that the UK’s exit from the EU does not harm Hungarian-British relations.

At the EU-UK divorce talks Hungary will push to ensure that Brexit does not dampen economic, investment and trade relations between the UK and the EU, Szijjártó said. He added that the government would protect the interests of Hungarian citizens working in the UK.

Szijjártó said a 492 million euro credit line is available from Eximbank to support Hungary-UK business links and help Hungarian SMEs reach the British market. The Hungarian government has signed strategic agreements with four British companies, namely Tesco, GlaxoSmithKline, Unilever and British Telecom, and all of them envisaged increasing the share of Hungarian suppliers, he added.

Three British projects were started in Hungary through the Hungarian investment-promotion system both last year and this year, and talks on another three projects are under way, he said. Two-way trade reached a record 5 billion euros last year, and increased by a further 3 percent in the first six months of this year, Szijjártó said.

British Ambassador Iain Lindsay highlighted the importance of Hungarian-British trade relations. He called Brexit a complex procedure which he said should do no harm to bilateral trade.

Photos: MTI

Source: MTI