Hungary’s foreign minister calls for Europe-US-China deal to preserve free trade

Hungary urges Europe, the United States and China to sign an agreement on preserving free and fair global trade and preventing a global trade war, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in Ningbo, China, on Thursday.

Szijjártó, who is on a three-day visit to China, attended a “16+1” meeting of Chinese and central and eastern European trade ministers after holding bilateral talks with Chinese trade minister Zhong Shan, the deputy minister in charge of China’s customs authority and the governor of Zhejiang province.

“Since Hungary has a small, open and export-orientated economy, it is of great concern for us to see the ever sharper divisions in global trade,”

Szijjártó told MTI by phone. “With the introduction or planned introduction of tariffs and trade restrictions, a trade war is brewing between the US, China and the European Union,” he added. “And a trade war like this could have serious negative effects on export-orientated countries like those of central Europe, including Hungary.”

Hungary sends 80 percent of its exports to the EU, but its second-largest export market is the US, followed by China,

the minister said. Therefore it would be completely against Hungary’s interests for its three largest export markets to enter into a trade war with one another. This is why Hungary urges the signing of a US-EU-Chinese agreement on the preservation of the freedom and fairness of the global economy and the prevention of a trade war, Szijjártó said.

Szijjártó said that

Hungary will be one of the three European guests of honor alongside Germany and Britain at the China International Import Expo in November.

The event will give Hungary the chance to showcase its pharmaceutical, agricultural, car industry and tourism-related products and services. This could allow for the trade turnover between the two countries to hit a new record this year, Szijjártó said, noting that the value of Hungary’s exports to China reached a record 2.6 billion dollars last year.

The minister said China’s customs office will send a delegation to Hungary in July to lift the country’s ban on Hungarian poultry imports that was imposed after an outbreak of bird flu in 2015.

As we wrote yesterday, China’s Zhejiang Kaishan Compressor has agreed to build a 45 billion forint (EUR 141.1m) geothermal power plant in Tura, not far from Budapest, Hungary’s foreign affairs and trade minister told, read more HERE.

Also we wrote a week ago, the Budapest Assembly unanimously approved a new pact between Budapest and Shanghai, China on the promotion of friendship and the exchange of experiences that lasts until 2022.

Photo: MTI

Source: MTI