Launched in 2010, the Hungarian foreign affairs and trade strategy aiming a closer cooperation with the booming East Asian economies, favourably coincided with the “One Belt, One Road” initiative proclaimed by the Chinese government. Since then, dominant international companies of China, such as Wanhua, Huawei, ZTE, or the Bank of China selected Hungary to be their regional headquarters, and last year the Hungarian export to China hit records with sales worth over 2.16 billion dollars. China is an increasingly important partner to Hungary, however not just in economic terms.

Science and technology (S&T) cooperation dates back to the 2002 research and development agreement. The Joint Committee meeting held biannually, is to discuss new possibilities of collaboration in the fields of science, technology and innovation. During the last meeting, the partners agreed to support 36 projects from the jointly financed Science & Technology Funds. The previous call resulted in 82 scientific publications and 10 patents registered. As for future cooperation, the parties intend to focus on large scale research projects that may be utilised in high-tech industries, as well as installing joint research and development laboratories, especially in the healthcare industry, vehicles industry, material sciences, biotechnology, agriculture and energetics. These topics will be on the agenda of the Joint Committee’s forthcoming meeting, that is scheduled to take place early next year in Budapest, and the arrangements of which shall involve further professional discussions.