Minister: foreign investors’ confidence in Hungary is unbroken

The confidence of foreign investors in Hungary “seems to be unbroken” despite “all the attacks, emotional blackmail and hysteria-mongering”, helping Hungary maintain its economic growth, the minister of foreign affairs and trade said on Friday.

Péter Szijjártó spoke at a project launch by Austria’s plywood maker KRONOSPAN-MOFA, and said the group would increase its capacity at its plant in Mohács, in southern Hungary, using a budget of HUF 2 billion (EUR 5.4 million). He added that the Hungarian government was supporting the project with a grant of HUF 286 million, “helping to preserve 230 jobs”.

“Economic crises always impact jobs, and the most important task of a government is to protect them; investments and government aid to those investments are crucial in saving jobs,” he said. Szijjártó said Hungary had seen EUR 6.5 billion in foreign investment last year, which he said was a “huge record”. He added, however, that last year’s record had been broken in the first half of 2023, while greenfield developments had shrunk by 15 percent elsewhere in the European Union.

Concerning the wood processing industry, which employs 16,000 people in the country, he said it had also broken a record last year, increasing by 26 percent and its earnings nearing HUF 600 billion. Austria is Hungary’s third largest trading partner, with bilateral trade increasing by 37 percent in 2022, to a total turnover of a record EUR 17 billion, the minister added.