Hungarian president welcomes Chinese counterpart Xi
Hungarian soldiers on horseback joined President Tamas Sulyok in welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping in the grounds of Budapest’s spectacular Buda Castle on Thursday on the third and final stop on Xi’s first European tour in five years.
Hungary under right-leaning Prime Minister Viktor Orban has become an important trade and investment partner for China, in contrast with some other EU nations that are considering becoming less dependent on the world’s second-largest economy. Xi arrived in Budapest late on Wednesday after visiting France and Serbia.
In Paris, President Emmanuel Macron and EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen pressed him to ensure more balanced trade with Europe and use his influence on Russia to end the war in Ukraine.
Xi was scheduled to meet Orban later in the day, with the war in Ukraine and infrastructure projects high on the agenda.
After his meeting with Sulyok, Xi said the friendship between China and Hungary was neither targeting, nor dictated by, any third party, China’s Xinhua news agency reported.
Xi said he hoped Hungary would take the rotating presidency of the EU in the second half of the year as an opportunity to promote the sound development of China-EU relations.
Hungary and China, which mark their 75th year of diplomatic relations, were expected to sign 16-18 new co-operation agreements, one of which could be a large-scale infrastructure project within China’s huge Belt and Road project, foreign minister Peter Szijjarto said this week.
Media outlets reported that Xi and Orban might travel to the southern town of Pecs to announce that China’s Great Wall Motor build a plant and produce electric vehicles there.
Szijjarto denied that the two leaders would travel to Pecs, but said “there were negotiations with large Chinese companies about further investments”.
The government did not respond to a request for comment on the media reports.
Orban started bringing his country closer to Beijing after he came to power in 2010. Warm political relations turned into investments about a decade later when battery and electric vehicle (EV) makers started to bring production to Hungary.
One of the biggest investors, CATL, is building a €7.3bn battery plant in Debrecen while Chinese EV maker BYD announced late last year that it was building its first European plant in southern Szeged.
China brought battery production into Europe first to save on shipping costs, as they were so heavy that it made sense to move production next to car factories of companies such as Daimler and BMW, Tamas Matura, assistant professor at Corvinus University, said.
The next step was producing Chinese EVs in Hungary as the EU’s protectionist plans were threatening their expansion, Matura said.
“These could affect them much less if they are already established and produce inside the EU,” he said.