The American Chamber of Commerce and the Hungarian Investment Promotion Agency (HIPA) hosted the 7th Business Meets Government Summit in the capital on Thursday.
In remarks opening the summit, Péter Szijjártó, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, noted that US companies are the second-biggest group of investors in the country. Some 1,700 US-owned companies employ 106,000 Hungarians. He noted the government has signed investment cooperation agreements with 88 American companies since 2015. Those companies have ploughed 1.4 billion dollars into the country, he added. The government has also signed strategic cooperation agreements with 14 US companies that employ 15,400 people, he said. Bilateral trade between Hungary and the US grew by 68% between 2010 and 2020, Szijjártó said. Last year, Hungary’s exports to the US reached 3.6 billion dollars, increasing 86% in a decade, he added.
The US is now Hungary’s second-biggest export market and the country’s second-biggest trading partner outside of the European Union. Szijjártó said AmCham has designated four key areas in its strategic work plan for the period 2021-2025: digitalisation, innovation, productivity and sustainability. He added that these areas dovetail with the government’s goals and can provide the groundwork for future cooperation.
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