Finance Minister Mihaly Varga – Photo: MTI

Finance minister addresses business forum in Nur-Sultan

Finance Minister Mihaly Varga spoke at a business forum in Nur-Sultan organised by the Kazakh Chamber of Foreign Trade and the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MKIK), the finance ministry said in a statement on Monday.

Varga travelled to Kazakhstan with a delegation of close to 50 Hungarian business leaders.

At the forum, he noted that Hungary’s exports to Kazakhstan, including pharmaceuticals, chemicals and livestock, rose by almost 60 percent last year. Bilateral trade between the countries exceeded 330 million dollars in 2020, supported by meetings between Hungarian and Kazakh business leaders organised in recent years, he said.

Varga said economic cooperation between Kazakhstan and Hungary extends to the commerce, farming, energy, renewable energy, finance, food industry and construction sectors.

Kazakh Minister of National Economy Aset Irgaliyev also participated at the forum.

Agreements on cooperation in farming, healthcare, logistics, city management and green innovation were signed in the framework of the forum.

Varga paid a visit to the Gumilyov Eurasian National University, which has a “Hungarian Point” language lab. Regarding that facility, the minister said that “its significance is much larger than conveying the Hungarian language and culture to students”.

He noted that in the last academic year the Hungarian government provided scholarships to 507 Kazakh students to study in Hungary’s higher education under the Stipendium Hungaricum programme.

Varga received an honorary degree from the university’s rector, Yerlan Sydykov.

Leave a Reply