In his view, the centre now opened reinforces an alliance in which every party involved will be a winner, and „a new Silk Road” may come into being between China and Hungary, and the prospective centre of European growth, the region of Central-Europe.

"This meeting has been successfully arranged in the midst of a migration crisis, which is proof of the fact that we have the strength to steadily carry on (...) the development of Hungary”, the Prime Minister said.

Reiterating the period after 2010, Mr Orbán highlighted: during the course of the “custom-tailored” Hungarian crisis management which was devised at the time, “we did not have many supporters”. However, China supported Hungary even during those times. "When we were required to prove our international financial background to the world, we could hardly have succeeded, had China not supported us as early as in 2010”, he stated, describing Hungarian-Chinese relations in the past few years as better than ever before.

Mr Orbán further mentioned that we must praise the foresight of the Hungarian political elite retroactive to many long decades from the respect that decision-makers were aware already under the previous regime: we must hold China in high esteem, and foster relations with it.

He finally remarked that the Hungarians have been mocked a great deal due to their Asian origin; now, however, „this has become such a trendy thing in the modern world". The importance of the East has increased in the world economy, the Prime Minister stressed.

At the opening of the centre, Tian Guoli, Chairman of the Bank of China reiterated that the RMB is the world’s second largest commercial currency, and is the fifth most significant one in international payments. He said: the fact that commercial cooperation in Chinese-Hungarian economic relations has increased dramatically in the past one year testifies to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s „wise foresight”. This is partly owing to the fact that the „internationalisation” of the RMB has accelerated.

He pointed out: in 2014, China imported various goods worth USD 3.26 billion from Hungary. This is a 20 per cent increase compared with the year before. It is also important that China has become Hungary’s most important trade partner outside Europe.

The RMB is playing an increasingly important role in payments between Chinese and Hungarian companies and in Chinese-Hungarian trade. Payments cleared in the RMB in trade with Hungary amounted to more than USD 27 billion last year.

Márton Nagy, Vice-Governor of the National Bank of Hungary (MNB) reiterated at the event that the central bank of China and MNB signed a memorandum regarding the plan that the Bank of China will set up an RMB clearing centre in Budapest. He further reiterated: the central bank of China and the National Bank of Hungary laid down the symbolic foundation stone of the renminbi centre in Budapest by virtue of the signing of this memorandum on 27 June.

The ceremonial opening of the centre was also attended by Minister for National Economy Mihály Varga.

After Asia, so-called renminbi (RMB) centres are being set up one by one also in Europe; after the centres opened in Luxembourg, London, Frankfurt and Paris, the centre in Budapest is the fifth one. These centres provide the clearing infrastructure which is necessary for transactions conducted outside China in renminbi. Additionally, they offer an increasingly wide range of services to customers. The renminbi (people’s currency) is the official designation of the Chinese national currency.

The Budapest centre is the Bank of China’s Eastern- and Central-European regional RMB clearing centre.

The National Bank of Hungary, too, invests a small portion of its foreign currency reserves in Chinese government securities; the first such investment was made in May. The national bank announced the Central Bank Renminbi Programme on 19 February 2015, and indicated at the time that they would look into the possibility of developing a renminbi foreign currency reserve portfolio.

According to the 2014 year-end data presented in the information film which was shown at the Friday opening, the Bank of China’s return on assets ratio was 1.22 per cent, its net profit amounted to USD 29 billion, and its balance sheet grand total was in excess of USD 2,500 billion.

The bank has more than 600 branches and representations in 41 countries around the world.

Source: Prime Minister's Office

MTI Photo: Gergely Botár