President Erdoğan: "I am pleased to sign a memorandum of understanding between KOSGEB and the Hungarian National Trade Agency (MNKH)."

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan attended the Turkey-Hungary Business Forum in Budapest with the invitation of Janos Ader, President of Hungary.

Erdoğan, referring to the Hungarian-Turkish ties, gave important messages together with the Prime Minister of Hungary about bilateral cooperation in the forum.

President Erdogan reminded that the relations between the two countries in 2009, approximately $ 1.5 billion in bilateral trade, rising to $ 2.6 billion in 2017. He also said: "In the first 8 months of 2018, this trade reached a volume of $ 1.8 billion. Now, the target is to catch $5 billion but the main target of the two countries is to reach € 6 billion."

President Erdoğan, stating that despite all these positive developments, the current state of economic relations between the two countries is not sufficient, said “We can carry our economic relations further. The trade between the two countries, which are close to each other historically and culturally, have no political problems and completed their legal infrastructure in terms of economic relations, should be at higher levels. The most important task for us and our businessmen is to maximise our bilateral trade to level that worthy of friendship ties between Turkey and Hungary. This huge task is falling to our businessmen.”

Expressing his pleasure for signing a memorandum of understanding between KOSGEB and the Hungarian National Trade Agency (MNKH), Erdogan also said: “I and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban are ready to do our part.”

A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between KOSGEB and the Hungarian National Trade Agency in the Business Forum where more than 300 businessmen participated as Turkish and Hungarian businessmen.

Minister of Trade Ruhsar Pekcan, President of the Turkish-Hungarian Business Council Adnan Polat, DEIK President Nail Opak and his Hungarian associates gave messages for the development of the two countries' cooperation in the forum.

Following the signing ceremony, KOSGEB, MNKH and ALX officials, which represent MNKH in Turkey, discussed the possibilities of cooperation.

President of KOSGEB Prof. Dr. Cevahir Uzkurt stated that they are ready to increase the volume of bilateral trade, develop cooperation between SMEs of the two countries and all kinds of cooperation to open to third markets within the framework of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's targets.

MNKH General Manager Gabor Lıgetfalvı, stated that they have entered a new period in MNKH, they want to benefit from KOSGEB experiences in the process of transformation and they have concrete cooperation expectations, obtained a promise of support from the President of KOSGEB Prof. Dr. Cevahir Uzkurt for the activities targeting SMEs and institutional structuring process.

During the meeting, concrete activities and the action plan were discussed thereby setting targets for developing technical and commercial cooperation between the SMEs of the two countries.