"In the last few years, trade and economic relations were among the areas affected by the sanctions imposed on Russia by European countries and the United States. But determination of both governments demonstrated the ability of major projects of the bilateral cooperation to function even in such difficult conditions," Szijjarto said before the talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
"We are ready to show that it is possible to work even better that we have worked before," he added.
He underlined the success of previous agreements that focused on Hungarian investments into the Russian agro-industrial complex and mechanical engineering, as well as the bilateral agreement on interregional cooperation signed in February 2015, all of which, according to Szijjarto, proved to work well.
"We are hoping that international processes will help promote further development of Russian-Hungarian cooperation," Szijjarto said, adding that Hungary is looking forward to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Budapest.
Putin is scheduled to visit Budapest on February 2.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the trade turnover between Russia and Hungary in nine months of 2016 went down by 10,2 percent year-on-year to $3.1 billion. Russia’s export to Hungary dropped by 11.9 percent — to $1.9 billion, import — by 7.2 percent to $1.2 billion.
Never miss a story again — sign up to our Telegram channel and we'll keep you up to speed!
