The 6.5 billion forint (EUR 18.6m) investment increased the capacity of Hoffman Neopac AG’s manufacturing plant, enabling the company to preserve 176 jobs and add another 25, Szijjártó said.

The government supported the investment with an 843 million forint grant, he added. “The value of investments grew by 10.8% in the second quarter of 2021, with investments currently totalling 1,700 billion forints nationwide,” Szijjártó said at the inauguration event.

Economic development and environmental protection go hand in and in the government’s economy strategy, Szijjártó said. The Debrecen plant fulfils both requirements as it will manufacture tubes from recycled materials, he said.

Another big project will involve a 65 billion forint (EUR 185m) investment backed by 13 billion forints of state support, creating 440 new jobs near Debrecen, in eastern Hungary.

Chinese company SEMCORP is to complete a factory for manufacturing separator foils for lithium-ion batteries by the end of 2022, Szijjártó said at the ground-breaking ceremony.

He said “trade winds are blowing from the East” in many modern industries of the new global economy, including the electric car industry.

The new 97,000sqm plant will be SEMCORP’s first manufacturing unit outside China, representing a “new chapter in the success story of Hungarian-Chinese economic cooperation”, he added.


MTI Photo: Zsolt Czeglédi