Xi Jinping Wins Viktor Orban’s Support on Trade and Investment

Xi Jinping Wins Viktor Orban’s Support on Trade and Investment

[CC may contain inaccuracies] Hungary has always or traditionally had quite a fractious relationship with others in the EU. So how important is this securing China’s ambitions in the region? Absolutely. It comes at a time of rising trade friction, if you will, with Brussels. Ursula von der Leyen, the EEC president, has been very outspoken against China’s overcapacity issues and the potential dumping of EVs and other green products in the European market. And again, there’s this investigation into potential dumping and subsidies by the Chinese government and the like, and there could be and the Chinese EV makers that I’ve talked to say they fully expect some sort of tariff regime on EVs. Now, Xi Jinping obviously sees a great opportunity with a country like Hungary, which already has EV battery supply chain that the South Koreans are in there, the Chinese are in their Seattle, they’re building this supply chain into southern Europe excuse me, southern Germany, where there’s automobile factories in Slovakia as well. Look, Hungary has cheaper labor. They have a 9% corporate tax rate. They are friendly to Chinese investment, extremely friendly. Viktor Orban, the prime minister, basically in lockstep with the Chinese development model, using lower wages in in his country, wide open land to build these factories. And they are courting that. And that’s why Xi Jinping is wrapping up his European trip the first time in five years in two friendly countries to China, that is Serbia. Serbia. Thank you. And then also now Hungary. So it look, I’m just going to pick up the statements from Xi Jinping. He says we will strengthen cooperation in our development strategies, deepening ties in trade, finance and our economies. He also wrote, by the way, in a ruling party, Hungarian newspaper, on the path of Chinese style modernisation and development, we see Hungary as a traveling companion. Now I want to change the page because we did get the actual readout from the Hungarian government. Viktor Orban statements, but this is from the Chinese readout of his meeting with Xi. It reads like it was written by Beijing. Okay. Hungary does not identify with the rhetoric of so-called overcapacity or de-risking. Hungary’s determination to deepen cooperation with China is unswerving and will not be interfered by any force. They really do. Beijing does need to get a new English thesaurus because unswerving is definitely a word that the Beijing authorities use quite a bit. So I’m not so sure that Viktor Orban used that word. But again, we have to attribute it to the Chinese readout of Viktor Orban’s comments towards Xi Jinping. It’s sort of Chinese diplomatic bingo, right? Such a fun game which companies are poised to benefit the most? You know, obviously in Xi Jinping’s new three, the big, you know, green story, if you will, the electric vehicles as well as batteries, solar and the like. Already we’re seeing Viktor Orban’s government trying to create the infrastructure for the EV industry in the European bloc, the EU trading bloc, by courting the likes of BYD, they’re building a massive plant in Hungary. Also, we’re expecting some sort of announcement with Great Wall Motor. We got a statement yesterday saying that NIO has been in talks as well with the Hungarian government. Seattle has their facilities and building out even further in eastern Hungary. But also the South Korean big battery makers have already been in Hungary. They’re supplying, again, as I said, to the German automakers in Bavaria, in southern Germany, also in Slovakia, I believe it is so again in the new three that Xi Jinping has been pushing for technology, green technology are going to benefit. And Viktor Orban is in lockstep with Xi Jinping on that development model.

President Xi Jinping pledged more rail and energy investments in Hungary as he strengthened ties with Prime Minister Viktor Orban. The Chinese leader’s visit to Budapest comes as the EU is becoming tougher on trade relations with Beijing. Stephen Engle reports on Bloomberg Television.
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