Orban highlights oil industry cooperation in Kazakhstan

Astana, April 1 (MTI) – The Hungarian oil industry in Kazakhstan is a flagship for developing Hungarian-Kazakh relations, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said after talks with counterpart Karim Massimov on Wednesday.

Orban who is on a three-day visit in Astana told a joint press conference with Massimov that they had decided to sign an aviation agreement with a view to launching direct flights between the two countries. He also emphasised the importance of cooperation in nuclear energy and engineering services.

He said Hungary would provide 200 scholarships to Kazakh students.

Massimov noted Hungary, as an EU member, and Kazakhstan, as an important country in the Asian region, would tighten strategic cooperation. He said the talks with Orban went well beyond the usual level of political dialogue and this had been true too of a meeting with President Nursultan Nazarbayev earlier in the day.

Orban said the government had decided that Hungary would join the Asian Development Bank. The prime minister accepted an invitation to an economic forum to be held in May as well as the 2017 Expo slated to be held in Kazakhstan.

Orban said that in today’s world everyone was thinking about how to be successful in a fast-changing world. For Hungary, which lost a large part of its raw material resources and sources of energy for historical reasons it is not easy to find an answer to this question, he said, adding that it is important to create good relations with fast-developing parts of the world, and this is why a good relationship with Kazakhstan is essential.