MANILA — The Philippines and Hungary will hold their first Joint Committee on Economic and Trade Cooperation (JCTEC) in September, Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Secretary Ramon Lopez told reporters Sunday.
Lopez led a Philippine trade mission to Hungary last week where he met Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto and Deputy Speaker of the Hungarian Parliament Istvan Jacab.
The JCTEC is a development from the Philippine-Hungarian Economic Cooperation Agreement signed between the two countries in March 2017.
The JCTEC is a platform for the two governments to strengthen bilateral trade, investments, and economic cooperation.
“We had bilateral meetings where we pushed for our exports such as agri-based like banana mango coconut and their processed products, carageenan, canned tuna and marine products, electronics, automotive parts, and aerospace parts. They have strong interest on mango, banana, coconut, and carageenan,” Lopez said in a text message.
The trade chief said he invited Hungarian businessmen to invest in the Philippines and make the country its manufacturing hub in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations region.
He said some one-billion euro fund in Hungary’s Export-Import Bank could be tapped by Hungarian companies if they plan to do business in the Philippines.
He added that Hungary, which is one of the 28 member states of the European Union (EU), can also be the Philippines’ gateway to the EU.
Lopez added that bilateral relations between the two countries further strengthened as Hungary reopened its embassy in Manila last year.
Data from the EU showed that two-way trade between the Philippines and Hungary in 2016 stood at 185 million euros, sharing only 1.4 percent of EU’s total trade with the Philippines.
Philippine exports to Hungary reached 171 million euros while importing 14 million euros from Hungary. (Kris Crismundo/PNA)
