Minister Szíjjártó was speaking in the northwest Hungarian city of Győr at the inauguration of a 6,000 square meter plant of the firm Qualitative Production (QP), Origo reports.
The minister said the growth of the car industry was uninterrupted as in the first half of 2018 it again rose by 7 percent to a value of HUF 4,500 billion.
Last year, the automotive industry accounted for 29.3 percent of manufacturing output and employed around 167, 000 people. He said the car industry is driving the modern-day industrial revolution and the world’s leading manufacturers deem it worthy to invest in Hungary. This is evidenced by the fact that Audi has begun the production of electric engines in Győr, Mercedes is building its second plant in Kecskemét, Peugeot is assembling engines for its new models in Szentgotthárd. BMW is building a car plant in Debrecen and the construction of a new test track for self-driving cars is underway in Zalaegerszeg.
He said Hungarian small and medium enterprises are clear beneficiaries of these investments and the QP plant is a good example for that. The plant – supplying piston heads for Audi – was an investment of HUF 6.2 billion, of which the state budget contributed 1.5 billion. QP – from its humble beginnings 25 years ago with 10 employees – now employs almost 200 people.
The plant will use the latest robotics technology on its new assembly line, with the equipment coming from Japan.
