Czerván, State-secretary for Agricultural Economy, believes that there are real opportunities of improving the agricultural trade between Hungary and Laos and also Hungary and Vietnam.

The State-secretary has just returned from talks in south-eastern Asia and is confident that Hungary is likely to be the third country from within the European Union that will export meat to Vietnam.

Vietnam will open up its markets to Hungarian meat and meat-product imports only if Hungary enters into a bilateral agreement with the southeast Asian country.

Czerván is confident that this new agreement will benefit Hungarian farmers. Effectively, it means that Hungarian farmers will be able to export unlimited quantities of meat to Vietnam, a country whose GDP is booming.

During Czerván's stopover in Laos, he was invited to the opening of an animal feed plant in the country built with Hungarian support. Once the plant, the first of its kind in the country, is running at full capacity it will be able to produce 4,000 tons of feed per year.

The plant in Vientiane was built after Hungary loaned the Laotian government $2.2 million for this project. The money was lent to the Lao-Hungarian Livestock and Aquaculture Development Project. A further $6.4 million has been set aside for other projects aimed at developing the fish and livestock sectors in the developing nation.

More than 50% of Laos' GDP comes from the agricultural sector and until now they have almost exclusively exported raw materials. The animal feed plant is just the first completed project among several planned with Hungarian aid.

Another factor that helped create these bilateral opportunities in Laos and Vietnam are that many of the decision makers within the agricultural sector in both countries studied in Hungary. State-secretary Czerván says that this connection might be helpful for Hungary as it tries to establish itself in other business spheres also.

(DunaTV)