Exclusive: Cooperation not competition, agreement not disagreement needed for China-EU ties: Hungarian chamber head
Erno Peto, president of the Hungarian-Chinese Chamber of Economy
China and the EU are each other’s comprehensive strategic partners, with a wide range of common interests, with more cooperation than competition and more agreement than disagreement, Erno Peto, president of the Hungarian-Chinese Chamber of Economy, told the Global Times in an exclusive interview, amid the visit of China’s top leader to Hungary this week.
The significance of thevisit is very promising for Hungarian businesspeople, Peto said, describing this as the result of the close cooperation the two countries have fostered.He expressed confidence that “very good political relations that have existed at a high level for a long time will generate faster development in economic relations than ever before.”
Talking about the high complementarity between China and Hungary, Peto said that China was and still is Hungary’s ninth most important trading partner and the first most important trading partner outside Europe.
In addition to infrastructure projects and major battery industry investments, more cooperation in the fields of finance, alternative energy, communications technology and logistics can be developed substantially, according to the Hungarian industry representative.
Hungary can be a special platform for Chinese enterprises to directly enter the European market with their own branded products, Peto added.
In recent years, relations between China and Hungary have been highlighted, with frequent high-level exchanges, deepened mutual trust and fruitful outcomes in the joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative, observers said.
Investment from China has played an increasingly positive role, facilitating the economic development of Hungary, relevant data showed.
China’s direct investment in Hungary in 2023 amounted to 7.6 billion euros ($8.15 billion), accounting for 58 percent of Hungary’s total foreign direct investment inflow. This created more than 10,000 jobs, making China once again the largest source of foreign investment in Hungary since 2020, the Xinhua News Agency reported, citing data released by the Hungarian Investment Promotion Agency.
Petoalso noted the important role that China, the world’s second-largest economy, plays in leading the fight against the adverse effects of climate change, noting the potential of the joint development of the new-energy sector.
As the two countries are marking their 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations, the business community expected that more important opportunities are set to be unleashed for the growth of bilateral relations.
In the face of the growing complexities in the world, with the US-led West calling for “decoupling” from China for protectionism, the Hungarian chamber head said that “the globalization process is now irreversible,” noting that “now is the time for all three economic superpowers — China, the US and the EU — to manage the global economic situation carefully.”
“In my view, the EU’s economies need the Chinese market as much as China needs the EU market, so the solution is not the so-called decoupling, but cooperation that takes into consideration each other’s long-term interests,” Peto said.
