The Hungarian Prime Minister paid a two-day visit to Kazakhstan where he spoke of the importance of Hungary opening towards the East at the plenary meeting held with Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Massimov on Friday in Astana. According to Viktor Orbán, there is significant demand for the development of economic relations between Hungary and Kazakhstan.

On the part of Hungary, fifty firms from the fields of agriculture, the food industry, pharmaceutical industry, medical and bio-technology, the construction, vehicle and machine industries and the energy sector, deemed it important to send their representatives to the meeting in order to reinforce personal relations with their existing or prospective Kazakh partners.

One of the reasons for this particular interest is that opening towards the East is a key priority in the Hungarian Cabinet’s new foreign economic strategy, in which Kazakhstan plays a prominent role.

Hungary may be Kazakhstan’s partner in the modernisation and development of the Kazakh economy. Political relations between the two countries are balanced, there are no unresolved issues; consequently, we may turn our full attention to the improvement of economic relations, the Hungarian Prime Minister said.

Viktor Orbán said Hungary greatly appreciates the performance that Kazakhstan has rendered in the past twenty years, as a result of which it is now an important, leading state in the region and will remain so also in the long run. Before the press conference, the representatives of the two countries signed several bilateral agreements, including a joint manifesto of the two governments, a document on the mutual exchange of taxation information, a declaration of intent regarding cooperation in health care and an agreement between the chambers of commerce and industry of the two countries on the establishment of a business council.

The Kazakh Prime Minister welcomed the intention that Hungary wishes to join the European countries which have strategic cooperation agreements with Kazakhstan, Viktor Orbán highlighted in connection with the agreements now concluded, and added that he proposed the establishment of joint ventures and a monetary fund that is designed to promote the operation of these.

The Prime Minister also made mention of the role played by MOL in Kazakhstan, including the fact that the Hungarian oil industry company successfully cooperates with Kazakh companies. At the same time, he requested his Kazakh counterpart to provide further opportunities for MOL in his country.

Prime Minister Karim Massimov, invited to pay a visit to Hungary, stressed the importance of bilateral cooperation at the meeting. He said he and Viktor Orbán also discussed the situation of the European Union and Central Europe at their morning meeting. At the press conference, the Kazakh leader expressed his hope that the Hungarian Government’s efforts to open towards the East will be successful. He said he hoped that the educational, agricultural and construction industry agreements concluded would yield tangible results within the shortest possible time.

Viktor Orbán said Hungary has, in the past twenty years, implemented a successful process of western integration, and now adopts the policy of opening towards the East in response to the shift in the centre of gravity in the world economy. Therefore, the visit of a Hungarian governmental and business delegation to Kazakhstan has been long overdue. Hungary wishes to adjust to the changes in the global economy by virtue of its policy of opening towards the East, in which countries like Kazakhstan will greatly gain in significance, the Prime Minister stressed.

Orbán said Hungary did not only have a change of governments two years ago. Hungary also underwent a change of mentality, and this is the main source of its disputes with the European Union. The Hungarian people understood early on what leaders in the EU are reluctant to accept; we cannot go on living the way we did before. Hungarians understood that Europe had strayed onto the wrong path, and experienced to their detriment that Hungary had suffered particularly greatly as a result of this temporary loss of orientation.

The Government has experienced in the past two years that people in the emerging and successful eastern countries very clearly understand Hungary’s aspirations, goals and new direction. They understand that, instead of illusions, dogmas and ideologies, we wish to build our economy on genuine foundations, on the foundations of genuine and tangible values.

Those will mainly succeed in the competition currently taking place in the world economy who recognise its true nature, the Hungarian Prime Minister said. This competition is, in fact, the competition of cooperations. A company, a country, a region may well be strong; however, if they fail to recognise in good time the type of cooperation that will enable them to best use their own strength, others may surpass them with ease.

Europe’s serious crisis today demonstrates only too well what happens if a strong player fails to follow the pace of the new competition, turns inwards and expends an immeasurable amount of energy to resolve problems of its own making, instead of attempting to gain ground in the new competition of unparalleled complexity by seeking out new cooperations and brave new solutions.

In closing his two-day visit to Kazakhstan, Viktor Orbán also met with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

(kormany.hu)