"Mutual high-level meetings, professional discussions and forums between China and Hungary are achieving the required results and business relations between the two countries are expected to expand", said Deputy State Secretary of the Ministry of Rural Development Katalin Tóth at the conference organised in Budapest by the Commercial Centre of the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and the Hungarian Kincsem Agricultural Cooperative. The Deputy State Secretary for Parliamentary, Social and International Affairs emphasised that the two countries' public administration and economic participants must make further efforts, which primarily assumes taking an active role.

"1.5 billion people live in China, meaning that the food supply of 20 percent of the world's population must be provided for", noted the State Secretary in her speech. "China contributes some 10.7 percent of the world's food production, while it consumes 23 percent of the good produces and so requires continuous imports. Hungary's natural conditions are excellent, and it produces healthy foods that comply to the highest export requirements and whose export to China may be increased", stressed the Deputy State Secretary. She also added that Hungary has an interest in high-level forms of cooperation that are not limited simply to the mutual exchange of goods. For this reason the Ministry of Rural Development is actively working to promote the building of direct relationships between the two country's economic players.

The Deputy State Secretary reminded those present that Chinese-Hungarian political and economic relations have developed extremely intensively in recent years. Katalin Tóth stressed that Chinese-Hungarian agricultural diplomacy relations have also gained significant momentum, noting that there is continuous cooperation between the Hungarian Ministry of Rural Development and the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture. As an example, she mentioned that Minister for Rural Development Sándor Fazekas had held talks in Peking with Chinese Deputy Minister for Agriculture Niu Dun, Minister for Water Resources Chen Lei and with the ministerial-level Director of the Quarantine Bureau in April. In addition, the Hungarian-Chinese Agricultural Workgroup, which coordinates agricultural relations between the two countries, meets for regular sessions, the last one having been held in Budapest this May. Katalin Tóth announced that Chinese Deputy Minister for Water Dong Li would be visiting Hungary in September, at which time the 3rd Hungarian-Chinese Water Workshop would also be held.

(Press Office of the Ministry of Rural Development)