An agreement has been reached between Hungary and the United Arab Emirates on economic cooperation, as part of which a new urban district will be built in the vicinity of the Rákosrendező railway station with a huge investment of €5 billion, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó announced in Budapest on Wednesday.
In a press release, the minister welcomed the continuous development of bilateral relations with the UAE Minister of Foreign Trade Tani bin Ahmed al-Zejudi, highlighting that the value of trade between Hungary and the UAE has already exceeded $1 billion (€910 million) a year, and that domestic companies are also increasingly active in the food, I.T. and digital industries in the Middle East.
Szijjártó noted that both countries approach economic issues from a non-ideological perspective, which has been an essential basis for building new momentum for cooperation.
He added that it is always important in economic cooperation between two countries to have a flagship project, which in this case could be the construction of a new Budapest district on a particularly dilapidated site. The agreement will provide the framework for the real estate development giant Eagle Hills in the area around the Rákosrendező freight train station.
“It is a €5 billion investment and will create a new district, a new urban quarter, around the Rákosrendező railway station and the surrounding derelict industrial areas,” Szijjártó said.
This is the second such project of the Dubai real estate developer in Europe. Eagle Hills’ first project outside the Emirates was the Belgrade Waterfront district in the capital of Serbia, just south of Hungary.