Although the volume of economic cooperation between Hungary and Kazakhstan is not yet high enough, they have achieved a large increase in this and have created the basis for it to expand by an order of magnitude in the coming years, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Thursday in Astana, where he attended an official bilateral meeting with Kazakhstan With President Zsomart Tokajev.
At the press conference, Viktor Orbán thanked him for the award given to him in the spirit of Kazakh-Hungarian friendship, noting that he considers it an honor and emphasized that "in the spirit of this, we will continue to work in the future to promote stable cooperation between the two countries". Kassim-Zsomart Tokayev, the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, presented the Hungarian Prime Minister with the first degree of the Kazakh Order of Friendship.
Viktor Orbán expressed his condolences for the disaster in the Karaganda mine. Our thoughts and prayers were and are with you, said the Prime Minister.
He also mentioned that nine years ago they decided to raise Hungarian-Kazakh relations to a high strategic level, in which they invested a lot of work. The results were already visible this year, and in the future the economic cooperation may expand further, he said.
In his speech, the Prime Minister expressed his gratitude to President Kassim-Zomart Tokajev, for the fact that not only economic issues were discussed during their meeting, but also global security issues. He noted that the topic will come up again on Friday at the tenth summit of the Organization of Turkic States.
The prime minister reminded the Kazakh president that the Hungarians arrived in Europe from the east, and that the Hungarian people think that life is nothing more than an alliance between the ancestors, the living and the descendants.
He continued that, in this regard, the Kazakhs are part of our lives, as they are part of our common past, that is how we always think of Kazakhstan, and we are happy that we now have economic relations in addition to friendship.
Viktor Orbán called Hungary's energy supply a key issue and noted that it is important for us that we can now deliver crude oil not only from Russia, but also from Kazakhstan.
The extent of this is not great yet, but the channels have been opened, and from the point of view of the country's security, this is a big step forward, he added.
The Prime Minister also expressed his gratitude for the fact that Mol can participate in gas extraction in Kazakhstan, that Hungary was involved in the development of local green energy, and that there is also the possibility of cooperation in the nuclear industry.
He added that he is proud that 250 Kazakh university students come to Hungary every year, which means that around 1,000 Kazakh students are currently studying with Hungarian state scholarships.
MTI
