"Hungary remains China's good friend in Central Europe and Budapest has high hopes for cooperation, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Monday in Beijing, during a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang.
PM Orban recalled that this will be the 75th anniversary of the establishment of relations between the two countries.
He noted that they had established fruitful cooperation and personal friendship with previous prime ministers.
Political friendship also has a deeper, cultural foundation, he added.
It is no coincidence that Hungary was the first country in the Soviet bloc to recognize China, and the only Central European state to have consistently upheld the "one China" principle from the very beginning,
PM Orban stressed.
He also pointed out that Chinese President Xi Jinping had received him for the first time in 2009, when he was vice-president and Viktor Orban was leading the opposition. The talks they will hold on Tuesday will be their seventh meeting, which also clearly demonstrates the friendship between the two nations.
I will do my utmost to pursue a foreign policy towards China worthy of our predecessors,
Viktor Orban emphasized.
Li Qiang said that the two countries are bound together by a close friendship, which has also facilitated the development of bilateral relations at the highest level.
He added that Hungarian-Chinese relations have reached their best period so far, and a new kind of international relationship has been established.
After the meeting, in the presence of the two countries' premiers, a number of intergovernmental agreements were signed, including on the priority bilateral projects in China's One Belt One Road Initiative, an education cooperation program, an industrial and investment cooperation program, as well as agreements on economic and technological development, the digital economy and climate protection.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban will attend the third summit of the Belt and Road Forum on Tuesday and Wednesday. He spoke at the previous two summits, in 2017 and 2019.
China is Hungary’s ninth most important trading partner, and this year, China is once again Hungary’s largest direct foreign investor.
Cover photo: In the photo released by the PM's Press Office, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (l) is received by Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang (r) in Beijing on October 16, 2023 (Photo: MTI/PM's Press Office/Zoltan Fischer)
