The foundation stone of the approximately HUF 280 billion investment of the South Korean EcoPro has been laid in Debrecen, 630 new jobs will be created in the company’s factory that produces cathodes for electric batteries, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó announced on Friday.
According to the ministry’s statement, the head of the department reported at the foundation stone laying ceremony of the company’s first plant outside of South Korea that the factory will produce around 108,000 tons of cathode material per year under environmental protection standards that are much stricter than usual in Europe. The investment worth HUF 280 billion was supported by the state with HUF 30 billion.
In his speech, he emphasized that in the past three years, the global economy has been completely turned upside down twice due to the coronavirus epidemic and the war in Ukraine, but despite the extraordinary difficulties, the global revolutionary renewal of the automotive industry has moved forward unshakably.
He said that on the one hand, this is an economic imperative, since all actors have already invested so much in this that it is impossible to turn back, and on the other hand, it is an environmental imperative since 14 percent of global emissions are related to road traffic.
“If in the coming years, the world is not able to convert transport to an electric one, then all kinds of environmental protection goals, all kinds of climate goals, all kinds of green goals will remain just a naive illusion,” he warned.
“Environmental protection is not only important as long as the word green has to be included in the name of the party, so if we really consider environmental protection as an important issue, then we know exactly that the most important task today is the transfer of transport and thus the automotive industry to electric bases,” he added.
Péter Szijjártó pointed out that all of this requires electric cars, and for them, electric batteries, and the Western automotive companies have become completely dependent on the Eastern battery manufacturers.
“Like it, don’t like it, that’s the way it is,” he said, underlining that seven of the world’s top ten battery manufacturers are Chinese and three are South Korean. He stated: one of the defining economic processes of the coming years will be the settlement of these companies in Europe, the question is simply where they will establish their new plants.
“We can also ask the question, which European country will benefit from all of this? In which European country will a large number of jobs be created, in which European country will the ultra-modern technology necessary to achieve environmental protection goals appear?” – listed.
“Our goal is for the answer to this question to sound like, of course, in Hungary,” he said. “And we sincerely hope that there are few people in Hungary who hope that these investments will benefit other countries,” he added.
The minister reminded us that our country ranks fourth in the world ranking in the production and export of electric batteries.
“So we are not talking about something new, not something secret, not something that no one knows about,” he underlined.
He emphasized that the prestigious position is due to the fact that Hungary has become a meeting point for Eastern and Western companies, which is the best example of Debrecen, which is emerging on the world map of car manufacturing.
For the development of the southern economic zone in Debrecen, the government has so far decided on HUF 140 billion worth of infrastructure improvements, and another HUF 360 billion worth of development is under preparation, he pointed out.
He also touched on the fact that Hungarian-South Korean trade turnover reached seven billion dollars last year after a 37 percent expansion, setting a huge record. Companies from the East Asian country now form the fourth largest investor community in Hungary.
MTI
Main picture: South Korean Ambassador Hong Kju Dok, owner, president and CEO Ri Dong Csi, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó, László Pósán, the region’s Fidesz parliamentarian and mayor László Papp (Fidesz-KDNP) (b-j) of the South Korean EcoPro about 280 at the foundation stone of its HUF 1 billion investment in Debrecen on April 21, 2023. 630 new jobs will be created at the company’s plant, which produces cathodes for electric batteries. MTI/Attila Balázs
