People's Daily Online, Oct 30, 2014 — "It is not an exaggeration to say that our cooperation in the field of politics, economy, commerce and culture has never been as good and effective as today," said Péter Szijjártó, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Tuesday.

Speaking at Hungarian embassy's reception to mark the 65th anniversary for establishing diplomatic relations between Hungary and China, Szijjártó pointed out that China's strategy of New Silk Road and Hungarian government's East Open Link are matched together, and they can strengthen each other.

Szijjártó briefed what have been achieved during his visit to China so far as well as cooperation the two countries have made during the past few years. He said that Hungary would continue to play an important role in the China and East Central Europe cooperation.

Culture and education are the two aspects Szijjártó stressed most. Like he said at the reception, to understand each other is the way for more effective cooperation. Now there are over 3,000 Hungarian students learning Chinese language at 10 different universities; scholarships have been offered for 200 Chinese youth to study in Hungary. There is a very unique institute in Hungary — an elementary school where kids are taught both in Hungarian and Chinese languages.

Besides the existing Confucius Institutes in Hungary, Szijjártó just signed an agreement during this visit on opening the fourth one to educate traditional Chinese medical science. Hungary published the first Chinese-Hungarian dictionary last year, and it will possibly introduce a school-leaving exam in Chinese language.

According to Szijjártó, Hungary is the third European country that was allowed to open a cultural institute in Beijing to offer a variety of programs. He especially mentioned a library with many Hungarian books for music education, such as books about famous Kodaly Method. He said that the next phase for the long-term mutually beneficial cooperation would be establishing person-to-person contacts in the two countries.

In the fields of economy, Hungary is an important target of the Chinese investment to Europe, with investments from China reaching 3.5 billion US dollars so far, according to Szijjártó. Additionally, Hungarian export to China broke the long-standing record of 2 billion US dollars last year.

Szijjártó also negotiated with Chinese Vice Commerce Minister Zhong Shan about the investment related to the modernization of the railway line between Budapest and Belgrade. He acknowledged that Bank of China is going to establish its regional center in Budapest this December.

Péter Szijjártó paid a working visit to China from October 26 to 29.