Szijjártó said the government had signed agreements with 77 companies, including 23 Hungarian ones, on those investments.
Investments by seven Chinese companies accounted for half of the investment volume, he added, noting big projects by companies from South Korea and Japan, too.
“The strategy of economic neutrality is working,” he said. He added that investments by Chinese, South Korean and Japanese companies had accounted for close to 80% of investment volume last year, validating the success of the government’s Eastern Opening policy.
German companies made up the fourth-biggest group of investors, US companies the fifth-biggest and Swiss companies the seventh-biggest, he said.
The vehicle and electronics industries were the backbone of new investments last year, followed by projects in the food sector, he added.
Some 19 agreements were signed on high-value-added projects involving business services, IT investments and research and decelopment, he said.
The locations of new investments show the East-West imbalance in Hungary is a thing of the past, he added.
Szijjártó said changes had marked the start of a new era in the global economy with increased competition to attract investments.
He added that the winners of that new era would be countries that could attract cutting-edge technology investments. Hungary performed “extraordinarily well” in that respect last year, he said.
