BUDAPEST: Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó and St Petersburg Governor Georgy Poltavchenko on Monday signed a cooperation agreement between the Hungarian ministry and the Russian region.
Speaking at the signing ceremony in Budapest, Szijjártó said Hungary would start shifting its focus to regional-level economic cooperation with Russia to limit damage done to bilateral trade by the EU and Russia’s sanctions against one another.
The deal with St Petersburg fits with this strategy, Szijjártó said. Hungary’s trade volume with that region came to 120 million US dollars in 2015, a significant drop compared with previous years and a trend Hungary aims to halt, the minister added.
Poltavchenko stressed the need to intensify economic relations between Hungary and St Petersburg, adding that the political will to do so is a given on both sides.
