trade

Hungary benefiting significantly from cooperation with Japan, says FM Szijjártó in Tokyo

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Hungary is benefiting significantly from its cooperation with Japan, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said after talks with his Japanese counterpart, Toshimitsu Motegi, on Tuesday.

Speaking to public media after the meeting in Japan, Szijjártó, who is the first foreign minister to visit the island country this year, said Hungarian-Japanese cooperation was based on mutual respect and friendship. “This is also true of economic cooperation,” he said. “Japanese businesses have trust in Hungary and the Hungarian people.”

Szijjártó said this trust was reflected in the fact that a total of 23 Japanese companies invested in their bases in Hungary last year with a view to avoiding layoffs.

The combined investments of 25 billion forints (EUR 68m) were supported by 9 billion forints in government grants and saved a total of 15,600 jobs, he said.

Suzuki’s plant in Esztergom, in northern Hungary, will be one of the bases to undergo major developments, Szijjártó said, adding that other auto industry players as well as the food sector were also set to see tens of billions of forints’ worth of investments by Japanese businesses over the coming months.

Meanwhile, the minister also highlighted Hungary and Japan‘s cooperation in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, noting that

Hungary has received millions of doses of medicines from Japan.

On another subject, Szijjártó said Hungary will take part in the 2025 World Expo in Osaka, adding that the Hungarian government has decided to open a consulate in the western Japanese city.

“We are really pushing for closer cooperation between the European Union and Japan, and for them to sign an investment protection agreement,”

Szijjártó said. He added that it was “even more important” for the East Asia Free Trade Area, of which Japan is a member, to enter into direct cooperation with the EU as quickly as possible.

AS we wrote today, Minister Szijjártó also met Tamayo Murakawa, Japan’s minister in charge of the Olympics, details HERE.

Mastering your trading psychology

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Trading is fast becoming a lucrative profession. The lure of making money has always attracted people. But beneath the lure lies a dark side that can engulf all your money and sanity. Making money is never easy and trading in stocks is no different.

In reality success in trading depends only on ‘you’. Can you discipline yourself to follow cold calculations instead of emotions? Can you be patient enough to watch the minute changes in the stock position for days to identify an opportunity? Can you identify and act decisively in a fraction of a second to seize up an opportunity? Can you be calm in the face of heavy losses? If you are willing to face these tasks and many more challenges for days on then you are welcome to be a trader. Trading psychology refers to a trader’s mindset and here are some points that can help you to control it.

  1. Being aware of your emotions

Successful traders display more positive characteristics which help them tide over a pitfall easily. They can keep their emotion under control and do not act on their bias or sentiment. This trait helps them to stand a better chance of reaping a profit or minimize losses during trading. Whether the trading is done with or without the assistance of a broker.

‘Trading psychology’ can be improved by recognizing your prejudices, sentiments, emotions, and personality traits and factoring them into your trading strategy or plan. Thus as your emotions and sentiments are woven into your plan, you can mitigate the negative effects and act fast. You are training yourself to think with your ‘brain’ rather than your ‘heart’.

  1. Recognizing your personality traits and biases

Be honest with yourself and list down all the impulsive tendencies in your personality. Keep this list with you and match your reaction while trading. You need to check to control the negative impulses while trading as they can result in anger, sadness, frustration and lead you to make a rash and erroneous decision. On the contrary, you can also take advantage of your positive impulses in your trading.

You need to identify and list your biases or prejudices as they also can influence your trading.

  1. Developing a trading plan

Your trading plan is the blueprint on which all your trading activity is based. Apart from your time commitments, available funds, or your risk-reward ratio, it should also list your personality traits and biases. These will form the framework on which you can form a plan to work.

  1. Improving patience

You may have to spend long hours just observing the market, waiting for the right opportunity. Patience is integral to a calm mind and lack of it can lead to rash decisions and errors. You cannot jump into a trade because you’re feeling restless as nothing is moving in the market.

  1. Being adaptive

Forming a trading plan is important but it is more important that you’ve to be prepared to change, modify or even discard it if necessary. This is because the market is changing every day and there are no perfect approach or way to trade. Adaptability is the key.

  1. Accepting losses

A loss will make you sad or frustrated. Instead of rushing into another deal, sometimes the best thing is to take a break after a loss. You need to gather your thoughts and reflect on the trade than rush into a deal to recover losses. Successful traders use their losses as a learning experience and avoid repeating the mistake. While you’re taking a break, you’re also cooling off and realigning yourself to return to trading with a clear head.

  1. Accepting wins

A big win will make you happy. But it is important not to be overconfident or feel invincible. This might lead to an erroneous trade. Be calm and like losing the best thing can be to take a break and return with a clear head.

  1. Maintaining a trading log

Record all your wins and losses along with the emotions you were experiencing during those trades. This record can help you to understand whether that particular trade was a good or a bad decision.

Conclusion

As our mental makeups are different, ‘trading psychology’ is also different for every trader. You just need to be honest with yourself about yourself and your goals and follow that trading plan to be successful.

Amazon’s new Polish site goes live as online competition grows

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Online retailer Amazon’s new Polish website went live on Tuesday morning, the company said, marking a significant intensification of competition in the country’s booming e-commerce sector.

Amazon had said in January it would open a Polish site to better serve local customers previously reliant on its German version but did not set a date. The news had sent shares in Polish e-commerce firm Allegro sharply lower on the day.

On Tuesday, shares in Allegro were up 2.4% at 0923 GMT.

“We are thrilled to launch Amazon.pl and to be able to offer Polish customers a selection of more than 100 million products, including tens of thousands of products from local Polish businesses,”

Alex Ootes, Vice President, European Expansion for Amazon, said in a statement.

In a statement emailed to Reuters on Tuesday morning, Allegro Chief Executive Francois Nuyts said “At Allegro, we focus primarily on customers” but he did not directly refer to the Amazon move.

Poland’s growing e-commerce market was given a further boost from online shopping during the pandemic and in October, home-grown eBay rival, Allegro, enjoyed a buoyant stock market debut, followed in January by parcel storage firm InPost.

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Read alsoPolish and Chinese presidents discuss buying Chinese COVID vaccine

Read alsoHungary finance minister has talks with Amazon, Tesla, Boeing leaders

Foreign minister: Hungary will do everything to support Western Balkans’ European integration

hungary montenegro

Ensuring peace and stability in the Western Balkans is in Hungary’s interest, Péter Szijjártó, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, said after talks with Djordje Radulovic, his Montenegrin counterpart, in Budapest on Friday.

Integrating the region into the European Union is crucial for achieving that end, the minister said, adding that Hungary “most resolutely” supports the accession of the Western Balkans to the EU, which, he added, was also in the bloc’s interest.

The Western Balkans is a focal point of Hungarian foreign policy, he said, adding: “Hungary, a neighbour of that region, knows the difference between peace, stability, calm, and prosperity there and when the opposite is happening.” He insisted that if Balkan countries were “weak”, illegal migrants could easily reach Hungary’s southern borders, that is why strengthening the region and integrating it with the EU was crucial for European security.

Hungary will do everything to support European integration, Szijjártó said, adding that “Montenegro should be in the EU already”.

He also called on the EU’s Portuguese presidency to speed up accession talks.

Hungary’s Eximbank has opened a 55 million euro loan credit line to finance coopearative projects by Hungarian and Montenegrin companies, Szijjártó said. He added that Hungarian retail bank OTP was a market leader in Montenegro, while low-cost airlines Wizzair was making preparations to open a new base in that country. Hotel chain Hunguest will refurbish one of its hotels in Montenegro, with the Hungarian government contributing one billion forints (EUR 2.8m) to the project worth 2 billion forints, the minister said.

Radulovic said that bilateral ties were excellent, and expressed his country’s gratitude for Hungary’s continous support for EU enlargement in the Western Balkans. Montengro wants to join the EU as soon as possible, he added.

The Montenegrin minister welcomed Hungary’s economic support and assistance in coping with the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.

The two officials agreed to reinforce bilateral cooperation in the areas of the economy, tourism, health, security, and education, he said.

Answering a question, Szijjártó said Hungary would receive another 500,000 doses of China’s Sinopharm vaccine by the end of next month, but added that he hoped the shipment would be delivered sooner, facilitating earlier vaccinations and an earlier removal of restrictions.

On the subject of ties with China, he also said that while the global economy had contracted by 9 percent last year, bilateral trade turnover was up by over 20 percent, and Hungary received the largest part of its FDI from that country.

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Read alsoHungarian companies helping make Western Balkans greener

Hungrian FM Szijjártó calls on EU to back Egypt unconditionally

szijjártó egypt

Egypt deserves unconditional support from the European Union as it has proven that illegal migration can be halted at sea as well as on land, Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s foreign minister, said after talks with his Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Shoukhry, on Tuesday.

By closing its maritime border six years ago, Egypt has since shown the falsity of the claim of Brussels officials and pro-migration politicians that migration waves cannot be contained along sea routes, he told a press conference in Cairo.

“Egypt is doing a great service for the whole of Europe, especially now that illegal migration involves major health risks. For this reason it deserves every possible assistance from the European Union,” he said.

Szijjártó also criticised the European Commission for setting conditions for Egypt’s access to EU funds. He noted that

last year 60 million dollars due to Egypt “had got stuck” because of political disputes.

The minister said that the idea of reshaping the EU ties with the southern neighbours had been raised on the session of foreign ministers on Monday.

Hungary flatly opposes the application of “negative political conditionality” and argues that “the big picture” should be kept in mind. It is worth calculating what loss Europe would suffer if the migration route via Egypt were not closed.

Szijjártó said that the two countries had always based their cooperation on mutual trust and refrained from interfering with one another’s internal affairs. Instead of criticising one another, they focused on identifying the mutually beneficial forms and fields of cooperation, he said.

In response to a question, Szijjártó, noting the “sensitive issue” of gas supplies in central Europe, said:

“This is why we have launched talks with Egypt on the purchase of liquefied natural gas.”

Later today Szijjártó is scheduled to meet Transport Minister Kamel al-Wazir.

Delivering the first railway carrages assembled by Hungary’s Dunakeszi Jarmujavito has been a “milestone” as well as “an excellent example of the cooperation between Hungary, Russia and Egypt”, Szijjártó said in Alexandria, details HERE.

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Read alsoWork of Hungarian archeologists recognised in Egypt – Photos

Reimagining diplomacy in the post-COVID World: an Indian perspective

India-coronavirus

BY S. JAISHANKAR, minister of external affairs of India

We enter 2021, hoping to put the COVID-19 pandemic behind us. While each society has dealt with it uniquely, global diplomacy will nevertheless focus on common concerns and shared lessons. Much of that revolves around the nature of globalization.

Our generation has been conditioned to think of that largely in economic terms. The general sense is one of trade, finance, services, communication, technology and mobility. This expresses the interdependence and interpenetration of our era. What COVID, however, brought out was the deeper indivisibility of our existence. Real globalization is more about pandemics, climate change and terrorism. They must constitute the core of diplomatic deliberations.

As we saw in 2020, overlooking such challenges comes at a huge cost.

Despite its many benefits, the world has also seen strong reactions to globalization. Much of that arises from unequal benefits, between and within societies. Regimes and dispensations that are oblivious to such happenings are therefore being challenged. We must ensure that this is not about winners and losers, but about nurturing sustainable communities everywhere.

COVID-19 has also redefined our understanding of security.

Until now, nations thought largely in military, intelligence, economic, and perhaps, cultural terms.

Today, they will not only assign greater weight to health security but increasingly worry about trusted and resilient supply chains. The stresses of the COVID-19 era brought out the fragility of our current situation. Additional engines of growth are needed to de-risk the global economy, as indeed is more transparency and market-viability.

Multilateral institutions have not come out well from this experience. Quite apart from controversies surrounding them, there was not even a pretense of a collective response to the most serious global crisis since 1945. This is cause for serious introspection. Reforming multilateralism is essential to creating effective solutions.

Fashioning a robust response to the COVID-19 challenge is set to dominate global diplomacy in 2021. In its own way, India has set an example. That it has done by defying prophets of doom and creating the health wherewithal to minimize its fatality rate and maximize its recovery rate. An international comparison of these numbers tells its own story. Not just that, India also stepped forward as the pharmacy of the world, supplying medicines to more than 150 countries, many as grants.

As our nation embarks on a mass vaccination effort, Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s assurance that it would help make vaccines accessible and affordable to the world is already being implemented. The first consignments of Made in India vaccines have reached not only our neighbors like Bhutan, Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Mauritius, Seychelles and Sri Lanka but partners far beyond like Brazil and Morocco.

Other key global challenges today deserve similar attention. As a central participant in reaching the Paris agreement, India has stood firm with regard to combating climate change. Its renewable energy targets have multiplied, its forest cover has grown, its bio-diversity has expanded and its focus on water utilization has increased. Practices honed at home are now applied to its development partnerships in Africa and elsewhere. By example and energy, Indian diplomacy is leading the way, including through the International Solar Alliance and the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure initiatives.

The challenge of countering terrorism and radicalization is also a formidable one. As a society, long subjected to cross-border terrorist attacks, India has been active in enhancing global awareness and encouraging coordinated action. It will be a major focus in India’s diplomacy as a non-permanent member of the Security Council and in forums like FATF and G20.

Among the takeaways from the COVID-19 experience has been the power of the digital domain. Whether it was contact tracing or the provision of financial and food support, India’s digital focus after 2014 has yielded impressive results. The “work from anywhere” practice was as strongly enhanced by COVID-19 as the “study from home” one. All these will help expand the toolkit of India’s development programs abroad and assist the recovery of many partners.

2020 also saw the largest repatriation exercise in history–the return home of more than 4 million Indians.

This alone brings out the importance of mobility in contemporary times. As smart manufacturing and the knowledge economy take deeper root, the need for trusted talent will surely grow. Facilitating its movement through diplomacy is in the global interest.

A return to normalcy in 2021 will mean safer travel, better health, economic revival and digitally driven services. They will be expressed in new conversations and fresh understandings. The world after COVID-19 will be more multi-polar, pluralistic and rebalanced. And India, with its experiences, will help make a difference.

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Read alsoWorld’s largest vaccine drive kickstarted in India

Unprecedented developments planned in Hungary’s food industry, says official

store shopping food tesco hungary

Developments on an unprecedented scale are planned in Hungary’s food industry by the end of the decade, with a significant increase in funding to become available during the current European Union budget period compared with the previous one, the state secretary in charge of food chain supervision at the ministry of agriculture said in Monday’s daily Magyar Nemzet.

Norbert Erdős said that rural Hungary will have access to 4,500 billion forints (EUR 12.5bn) worth of funding between 2021 and 2027, with the highest available budget contribution of 80 percent by the Hungarian state.

A tender is expected to be published in the first half of this year already which will enable micro and small businesses in the food industry to apply mostly for purchasing equipment, he said.

The ministry has launched a series of online consultations with representatives in the sector in order to ensure that the tenders invited match demands, Erdős added.

Hungary’s food industry is expected to once again become a key player in international competition by the end of the 2027 budgetary period, he said, adding that

Hungarian producers would get every opportunity to catch up with the most developed European competitors.

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Read alsoTop price increase came in 2021

Eight Hungarian companies to get EUR 36m support for investments abroad

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Eight companies will receive 13 billion forints (EUR 36m) in state support to carry out investments worth 25 billion forints abroad, Péter Szijjártó, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, said on Wednesday.

The government has launched its foreign markets economic growth scheme with the aim to help Hungarian companies set up production, research and service capacities abroad, Szijjártó told an event where the certificates were presented. The government has allocated 70 billion forints for the scheme, 157 companies have applied for funding and a total of 28 recipients have been announced so far, he added.

These companies will receive 42 billion forints for investments worth 80 billion forints, to be carried out mostly in the Western Balkans, he said.

In addition to the Western Balkans, investments will also be carried out in Austria and Singapore, he added.

Interesting coincidence?

One of the ‘winner’ companies was the MPP Magyarország Informatikai Szolgáltató Zrt. The company’s CEO is János Kóka who served the Socialist-Liberal Gyurcsány Government as Minister of Economy and Transport (2004-2007). 

János Kóka (born 5 July 1972) is a Hungarian businessman, private investor, IT entrepreneur and manager of various enterprises, who served as Minister of Economy and Transport between 2004 and 2007.
Budapest, Hungary. February 17, 2021. State secretary Levente Magyar and former Socialist-Liberal Minister János Kóka. Photo: MTI

As we wrote on Tuesday, a EUR 287m electronic road toll system to be built in Indonesia by Hungarian company Roatex will be Hungary’s biggest technology export so far, details HERE.

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Read alsoHungary to complete pipeline for Azeri gas by October

Indonesian investment biggest Hungarian tech export so far, says Minister Szijjártó

szijjártó indonesia hungary foreign minister

A 103 billion forint (EUR 287m) electronic road toll system to be built in Indonesia by Hungarian company Roatex will be Hungary’s biggest technology export so far, Péter Szijjártó, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, said in Jakarta on Tuesday.

Szijjártó told a press conference that the project, expected to be completed by 2023, was a “milestone” in Hungary’s foreign economic strategy. He said that 70 percent of the “technology and skills” for the project would be Hungarian.

Indonesia has 2,500 kms of highways, and this is expected to rise to 4,800kms, he added.

He said Indonesia was an important element of Hungary’s strategy of opening up to the East which started 11 years ago. The minister added that there were no unresolved issues to burden bilateral relations.

Talks are under way concerning a 50 million dollar subsidised loan programme under which Hungarian companies would build a meteorological and climate monitoring system in Indonesia, the minister said.

Szijjártó noted that Hungary offered scholarships to Indonesian students, adding that 1,200 were interested in studying at Hungarian universities and colleges this year. Currently 13 Hungarian universities are in cooperation with 23 Indonesian institutions, he said, adding that in view of high demand the Hungarian government was ready to increase the number of scholarships offered.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi noted two agreements were signed during the talks, one aimed at stepping up diplomatic capacities, and another designed to facilitate a 500 million dollar Indonesia-Hungary investment fund to finance future developments, including digitisation and public infrastructure projects.

She said bilateral trade turnover was 212 million dollars in 2020, up 13 percent from the previous year.

The two ministers also agreed that their countries would make bilateral trade more balanced and sustainable in the long run, to which end a central warehouse for Indonesian products would be set up in Budapest.

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Read alsoFurther investigation on Bangladesh mob boss’ business and money laundering in Hungary

Two Hungarian companies are helping to produce an active ingredient for the treatment of coronavirus

RotaChrom Technologies

RotaChrom Technologies, the developer of the world’s first industrial-scale Centrifugal Partition Chromatography (CPC) technology platform, announced today the launch of a collaboration with Cyclolab Cyclodextrin Research and Development Laboratory Ltd. (“Cyclolab”), a cyclodextrin research, development and manufacturing company. This strategic partnership between Cyclolab and RotaChrom aims to develop a more efficient and cost-effective process to purify Remdesivir, which is a widely used treatment option for COVID-19.

Remdesivir, an inhibitor of the viral RNA-dependent, RNA polymerase, is a direct-acting antiviral agent that is approved by the FDA as a treatment for patients with severe cases of COVID-19. It was originally developed to treat the Ebola virus, but research was also conducted on its effectiveness as a treatment for COVID-19 as a result of the pandemic. Once it was shown to be effective in clinical trials of hospitalized patients with severe symptoms, the agent was approved and is now being used in the United States, as well as other countries around the world. The formulations of Remdesivir contain 3 percent of the active ingredient and 97 percent of the cyclodextrin derivative that serves as an excipient.

The partnership will combine RotaChrom’s scalable CPC technology with Cyclolab’s knowledge and experience with cyclodextrins. The scalable system that will be utilized for this collaboration includes RotaChrom’s pilot-scale centrifugal partition chromatographic, known as the rCPC, that utilizes an innovative methodology of chromatography where separation occurs between two immiscible liquid phases, offering several advantages compared to more traditional methods. The result is a more purified compound of interest at a lower cost due to increased efficiency and automation.

“While the world anxiously waits for COVID-19 vaccines to be distributed, many are already infected and suffering from this terrible virus,” said RotaChrom CEO László Madarász. “By enhancing the production of a proven drug that has the ability to treat those who are already sick, we could potentially improve lives. We are proud to provide a solution by combining our company’s technologies with Cyclolab to create this much-needed strategic partnership.”

Cyclolab is a company with unparalleled expertise in the manufacturing, design and formulation of cyclodextrins. For this new collaboration, Cyclolab will provide its cyclodextrin-related analytical, formulation and chemistry expertise that spans back to the 1970s. In the three-staged collaboration that kicked off in early 2021, Cyclolab and RotaChrom aim to explore the potential synergies of the companies’ technologies and evaluate how a more economic purification alternative could be discovered.

“Cyclolab is a pioneer and a global leader in cyclodextrin science, and we are delighted to be working with RotaChrom, a unique company with state-of-the-art chromatography capabilities,”

said Tamás Sohajda, CEO of Cyclolab. “This strategic collaboration is a tremendous opportunity to create novel discoveries leading to significant added value through pharmaceutical therapies. While there are a handful of published examples on the marriage of these two techniques, no one has ever attempted to bring it to the industrial level. This is our goal now and what can be a better compound to start with than the one that is critically needed in millions of doses? If we could make even a small impact on better availability – either logistically or economically – we would consider it as a huge success and a beginning of a new era in preparative chromatography.”

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Read alsoWhen can the restrictions be lifted in Hungary?

It’s shameful that EU waited months to approve AstraZeneca’s vaccine, says Hungarian minister

@DominicRaab

Hungary’s interest lies in ensuring that its relations with the United Kingdom remain as strong as possible after Brexit, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said after talks with his British counterpart Dominic Raab on Tuesday.

Hungary is an ally to the UK on a number of issues, Szijjarto said in a video on Facebook. Britain is Hungary’s sixth most important investor with 900 British companies employing more than 55,000 Hungarians, the minister said. The UK is also Hungary’s 12th most important trading partner, he added.

British businesses, he said, had demonstrated their loyalty to Hungarian employees during the coronavirus pandemic, with five UK firms investing more than 5.5 million euros in Hungary last year. The government supported those investments with 2.7 million euros, he added.

Szijjártó said he and Raab had also discussed the situation around Covid-19 vaccines.

“We still believe it’s shameful that the European Union waited weeks and months to approve AstraZeneca’s vaccine,” the minister said. “Had the authorisation been granted sooner, we’d be further along in Hungary as well.”

Szijjártó noted that Hungary received a shipment of the AstraZeneca jab last Saturday, with the next batch scheduled to be delivered on Feb. 13, adding that the UK had the largest and most diverse stock of Covid vaccines.

Hungary is doing everything it can to ensure that its citizens can be inoculated as quickly as possible. Because Hungary has contracted vaccine doses from AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, China’s Sinopharm and Russia, the vaccination campaign can be speeded up significantly over the coming weeks, he said.

Szijjártó said he and Raab had also discussed support for persecuted Christians, which he said was an important goal for both governments.

Talks also touched on Hungary’s presidency of the Council of the EU set for the second half of 2024, during which Szijjártó said the country hopes to focus on the protection of national minorities, supporting families and interreligious dialogue.

Szijjártó said

Raab had assured him of the UK’s cooperation on those issues and promised to pay a visit to Hungary this year.

He noted that 2021 marks the 100th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Hungary and the United Kingdom, which they intend to celebrate in a way that will be worthy of the occasion.

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Read alsoHungary’s approach in connection with Brexit appreciated by UK, says Hungarian ambassador

Hungary to build a fleet in its new seaport on the Adriatic?

Hungary port sea navy

According to index.hu, the project of building a “Hungarian port” in Trieste is already in the preparation phase. It came to light a couple of days ago that the transaction with which the Hungarian state bought a small maritime territory in Trieste, Italy, was successfully finished.

According to index.hu, the state-owned Adria Port Ltd. bought a 32-hectare territory in Trieste with a 300-metre-long seashore and the relevant concession rights. The purchase

cost EUR 25 million,

which is a bit more than nine billion forints. The deadline for the concession rights is 60 years. As it was known already before, the territory needs to be recovered because of its industrial past. 

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade told index.hu that they increased the authorised capital of the company from EUR 1.8 million to EUR 16.8 million in December which will be used in the next phase of the project. The goal of the investment is to strengthen Hungary’s position in the international logistic chain and contribute to developing the country’s foreign trade. The ministry added that the government continues to investigate all other opportunities to reach its goal. However,

they do not want to create a fleet on the Adriatic Sea.

Based on the plans, the port will welcome small and medium cargo ships from where companies will forward their goods on railway and trucks towards Hungary and other countries. However, index.hu received a reader’s letter to which a map was attached showing that the sea near the port is very shallow. That means that even small ships will be unable to dock there. The ministry said that the map is not up to date and

everything is OK with the seashore their company bought.

As we reported before, the Trieste port will provide reliability and predictability for Hungarian firms, which will guarantee profitability, Szijjártó said last July. He added that the interest generated by the project among exporters made it “obvious” that it would be profitable, arguing that Hungarian and international companies would pay significant sums of money for storage and shipping at the site.

Szijjártó said at the time that the government had chosen Trieste because

it is one of the closest ports to Hungary with enough capacity to meet the needs of Hungarian exporters.

He said the port would be used by medium/large freight vessels. The largest ships tend to dock either in Rotterdam or Piraeus where they transfer their goods onto smaller vessels before sending them off to Trieste, he added. The turnover of goods between Trieste and Hungary has grown four-fold in recent years, with at least one freight train a day running between them.

Hungary expects this to double once the Hungarian port starts operating, he added. The minister said Hungary had also been in talks with Slovenia on setting up a port in Koper. However, those talks fell through due to opposition from some of the parties in Slovenia’s minority government, he added.

This is what Hungary’s seaport will look like!

Hungarian Seaport Magyar Kikötő Plan

Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó, announced more than a year and a half ago that the contract had been signed, based on which Hungary is establishing a seaport in Trieste as part of an EUR 131m project. This means that Hungary will have a seaport again after over 100 years.

According to Index, the Hungarian government also purchased an operating concession.

Over the weekend, it turned out that the case had been closed in the meantime, and Adria Port had 100% ownership of the Italian company Aquila, which owned the concession, so Hungary has a seaport again.

As we wrote HERE, Hungary purchased a 32-hectare area with a 300-meter-long coastline that can be used by Hungarian companies for their export activities, which is expected to amount to 2 million tons/year.

However, the area must first be recovered and a heritage protection procedure must be carried out, which could take up to a year.

Based on the visual design, Index found Hungary’s new area on Google Maps:

The 300-meter coastline and 32 hectares roughly mean that the coast, the Strada Provinciale 14, and the SP 15/ SS 15 roads border the Hungarian territory, to which the large “rusty cans” seen on the link do not belong.

You can explore the area in surprising detail on Google Maps. Check it out!

Hungary’s approach in connection with Brexit appreciated by UK, says Hungarian ambassador

hungarian ambassador to london

The UK has not only noticed but expressed appreciation for Hungary’s approach towards certain positions on Brexit, the Hungarian ambassador to the UK said in an interview with daily Magyar Nemzet on Thursday.

Right from the start, Hungary rejected a way of thinking about Brexit which involved efforts by some “to teach the UK a lesson” because of their decision to exit the European Union, Ferenc Kumin said.

Hungary tried to exert influence to prevent that this way of thinking should become prevalent when EU decisions were made about Brexit, he said. UK-Hungary relations in the post-Brexit period are characterised by this positive atmosphere, Kumin said.

“We are looking forward to a much more fruitful period of more extensive cooperation because in 2021 there are more things that connect us than at any point in the past one hundred years,” he added.

The value of Hungary as a target for investment has increased after Brexit, which is already reflected in investors’ decisions, he said.

“We know of several British companies that plan to enter or expand in Hungary and talks are in an advanced stage,” Kumin said.

Commenting on existing educational programmes and scientific cooperation organised in the EU framework, he said these would be replaced by bilateral agreements. Negotiations have already suggested that British universities need the foreign students and extra income lost because of Brexit, he added. “We have learnt by now that we need not worry about the brain-drain as much as we did in the 2000s,” he said.

“We know that there will be some people we lose but those that return to Hungary with the knowledge they acquired will have acquired skills and a network of relations that will compensate for any potential loss,” he added.

Kumin also said that the embassy’s work will also involve addressing “biased criticism of Hungarian government decisions based on inaccurate information”.

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Read alsoHungarian students are looking for new destinations after Brexit

Hungary will have a seaport again after 100 years

Cargo Ship Container Konténerhajó Teherhajó Kikötő

One and a half years ago, in July 2019, Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, announced that Hungary was going to purchase its own seaport to encourage Hungarian export to be conducted in the country’s own prospective seaport. This means that Hungary would finally have a seaport again after over 100 years.

According to Index, in 2019, there were two possible locations for the port. At first, the government wanted to purchase a port in the Slovenian Koper, but due to the worsening political relations and the different views of the two countries, Hungary ended up planning a different location. This is when they decided to reimagine the idea and started to negotiate with the Italian Matteo Salvini. The relations of Hungary were strengthening with the then-Minister of the Interior due to similar worldviews. Péter Szijjártó and the Italian Minister of the Interior announced in a press conference in 2019 that they had signed the contract and

Hungary managed to purchase a 300-metre-long port with 32 hectares of land area for €31 million as part of a 60-year concession contract in Trieste.

Index also wrote that, for a long time, no progress has been made, as certain conditions for concluding the contract and conducting the sale have not been fully met. The most recent and probably most major step in the process was made back on December 17, 2020. We know this as Péter Szijjártó, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, has confirmed the information to Hvg that on December 17, Aquila, the Italian company owning the concession, came under the full ownership of the Hungarian Adria Port, which the government founded just for this port project.

Hungarian Seaport Magyar Kikötő
Cargo containers in Trieste Source: adriaports.com

This moment concluded a 100-year period since the Treaty of Trianon during which Hungary had no seaport.

But, unfortunately, there is a catch. Although the port is now under Hungarian ownership as part of a concession contract, the port cannot conduct any ship traffic yet.

In order for the port to be able to receive ships and their cargo, the area must first be remediated, and a heritage protection procedure must be carried out, which can take up to a year.

Hungarian Seaport Magyar Kikötő Plan
Hungarian Seaport Development Concept Source: adriaports.com

Moreover, the Hungarian government plans investment in the development of the infrastructure of the area for another €100 million. The government expects Hungarian corporations and enterprises to conduct their shipping from the seaport in Trieste which would help reach the markets of Africa and the Middle East easier.

The expected cargo traffic is 2 million tonnes every year, which is about 78,000 containers.

After conducting the purchase, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has raised the fund of Adria Port Zrt. from €1.8 million to €16.8 million. Incidentally, Adria Port Zrt. only has four registered employees, including its chief executive officer, whose salary has been raised from HUF 1.5 million (€4,100) to HUF 1.9 million (€5,200).

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Foreign minister: South Korea brings biggest greenfield investment in Hungary’s history

sk innovation

South Korean company SK Innovation is bringing to Hungary a new 2.3 billion US dollar battery plant in what will be the country’s biggest ever greenfield investment, Péter Szijjártó, the foreign minister, said on Friday.

The development in Fejér County, in central Hungary, will create 2,500 jobs, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, said, adding that SK Innovation is South Korea’s largest energy and chemicals company and one of the world’s leading battery manufacturers.

The company’s first two overseas plants are located in Komárom, in northern Hungary, and its third European plant producing batteries for electric cars will also be located in Hungary, he said.

The government is providing financial support, and this agreement is in the process of being finalised, he said, adding the amount would be the largest single government grant in Hungarian investment history.

Construction of the 700,000sqm plant is scheduled to begin in the third quarter of the year, Szijjártó said, adding that the government has already approved a large-scale regional transport and electricity infrastructure development project serving the plant.

The foreign minister called the investment “a fantastic success” at a time of enormous health and economic challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic. He said Hungary had to work “much harder to get the SK Innovation investment amid extremely keen competition” which, he added, together with other Asian investors, had turned the country into “a frontrunner in electric battery production in Europe”.

Szijjártó said that 32 major South Korean companies have made investments in Hungary over the past six years, adding that bilateral trade turnover had increased by 28 percent last year.

Kim Jun, SK Innovation’s president-CEO, said in a video message that the company’s board decided to build the Ivancsa plant, the largest in Europe, with annual capacity of 30 GWh, at a meeting on Jan. 28. He called the site’s location “optimal” in terms of logistics and labour.

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Foreign minister asks Biden for more respect, in return he promises cooperation

BIDEN, Joe

According to Péter Szijjártó, the government would like to cooperate with Joe Biden’s administration, but he is asking for more respect for Hungary.

The Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs was a guest of the Global Conversation program in Euronews‘ Brussels studio, where he also spoke about the Russian Sputnik V vaccine contract, the rule of law mechanism and the Navalny case.

Szijjártó said that it was “not very important” that the Hungarian government was pro-Trump in the US presidential election campaign. He justified this by saying that as Hungarians they could not vote for the US presidential candidates.

He also claimed that he himself had not criticized Joe Biden, but that the new president of the USA had insulted Hungary when he called it an autocratic system.

According to the Foreign Minister, this insult was only part of the campaign anyway.

“We obviously ask for more respect for Hungary in this regard. We are quite confident that if the new president wants to deal with Central Europe, we are ready to work with him.”

He said he wanted the same level of ties with the United States as Hungary did during Trump’s presidency.

On another topic, he added that he does not see a more democratic politician in Europe than Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at the moment.

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Tenfold increase in Chinese rail freight traffic at Záhony

Chinese freight container trains

There was a nearly tenfold increase in the number of Chinese freight container trains arriving in Hungary through the Záhony transshipment station last year compared to 2019, daily Magyar Nemzet said on Monday.

Rail Cargo Operator Hungaria (RCO-HU) registered a steep increase in intermodal rail transport from the Far East since August 2020, Imre Kovács, Rail Cargo Hungaria board chairman and Rail Cargo Austria board member, told the paper.

Six to eight trains carrying 45-50 containers arrived monthly from China to the European Union border at Záhony in the third and fourth quarters of 2020 as against a total of four intermodal trains in 2019, the paper said.

Compared to the first half of 2020, the number of containers transported as rail freight between China and Europe increased by 41.7 percent.

A station in Malaszewicze on the Polish-Belarus border can hardly cope with receiving some two-hundred Chinese container trains monthly and the development of Záhony is expected to resolve the issue of handling further increase in traffic.

Kovács said Rail Cargo Hungaria expects a significant increase in traffic based on these developments and the fact that the EU announced 2021 as the European Year of Rail gives further reason for optimism.

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