Xi's Belt and Road speech wins wide praise

Peter Szijjarto, Hungary's minister of foreign affairs and trade. [Photo by Zhan Qianhui/chinadaily.com.cn]

Peter Szijjarto, Hungary's minister of foreign affairs and trade

Hungary has always had the intention to implement effective and pragmatic cooperation with this part of the world, because we understand that this part of the world is the most rapidly emerging part of the world. The European Union has been losing a lot of competiveness recently; we understand that the best way to regain the competiveness is to build up pragmatic and effective cooperation with China. This policy has pretty good results. In Central Europe, the most Chinese investments come to Hungary; the most exports to China come from Hungary.

It's a very forward-looking speech. We value the strategy of the president very much. We consider Euro-Asian economic cooperation as something very important from the perspective of Europe. We understand that the competition around the world in the global economy is becoming tougher and tougher, so now it's time for cooperation, strategic cooperation. And we believe in the necessity of strategic cooperation between Europe and Asia. So we are committed to support the Euro-Asia economic cooperation.

We have already over $4 billion of Chinese investments in Hungary. We had more than $2.25 billion put to China last year. Both figures are growing very quickly.