REL: Albania signed two agreements with Hungary during Rama's visit to Budapest

Albania and Hungary have signed two cooperation agreements and have expressed their willingness to further deepen cooperation and Hungarian investments in Tirana. An agreement in the field of agriculture and another in that of public administration were signed during a visit of the Albanian Prime Minister, Edi Rama, to Budapest, where he was met by the Hungarian leader Viktor Orban.

"We talked about how we could expand this cooperation, which, in fact, is not cooperation in itself, but is one-way help from the Hungarian side towards us," Rama said during a joint press conference with Prime Minister Orban.

He said that he talked with Orban about the further deepening of cooperation and showed that the investments of Hungarian companies in Albania reach the value of about 350 million euros.

"We feel encouraged by the fact that Hungarian companies are investing, but also the number of foreign direct investments in euro figures coming from Hungary is unusual when compared to countries that are like Albania in size," said Rama.

Rama's visit to Budapest comes about a year after Orbani visited Albania.

Orbani said that Hungary is open to helping Albania in modernizing its economy.

"We want Hungarian companies to succeed in Albania... I can tell you that our companies are also doing very well in the telecommunications market. We also have a very big project with Albania. Albania and Egypt will be connected, so Europe and Egypt will be connected by a telecommunications network", says Orban.

Orban referred to an agreement that Albania signed in February of this year with the Hungarian company 4iG for the construction of a direct underwater cable line with Egypt.

The cable line project, according to the Albanian government, is expected to turn Albania into an important international node. Rama had said at the time that the project would provide access "to this new road, to this new digital highway of the Mediterranean for a number of countries" in Central Europe.

This project is expected to cost around 100-115 million euros. In recent years, Hungary has increased its presence in the Albanian economy. According to data from the Institute of Statistics, the number of companies partially or fully owned by Hungarian capital doubled between 2016 and 2020.

The value of Hungarian investments increased 37 times from 2018 to 2021, according to data from the Bank of Albania. The 4iG company owns and manages in Albania one of the two mobile phone companies as well as the fixed phone, which it bought from a Turkish company that owned it. While the OTP banking group bought the Albanian subsidiary of Alpha Bank of Greece.

Rama expressed the desire for Hungarian investments to have an impact on the tourism sector as well.

"We want investments in tourism to follow and to have the Hungarian flag in Albania, and we like the Hungarian flag very much," said the Albanian Prime Minister.

Rama said that he thanked Orban for what the presidency of Hungary has done, according to him, unlike other countries, "with deeds and not with words". A week ago, Albania was invited by the European Union to open membership negotiations with Albania on October 15.

Hungary, which holds the six-month presidency of the EU, sent a letter to the member countries of the bloc, in which it was emphasized that Albania has fulfilled the necessary conditions for the opening of this chapter, which deals with fundamental rights./ REL