Gulyás called the drawdown of the credit a “totally normal” part of the government’s financing policy and said the Finance Ministry could provide more information on the loan.
He argued that the government aimed to diversify its financing and take out credit from as many countries or financial institutions as it could.
“When we talk about connectivity…we think it’s good for Hungary to have balanced trade and balanced economic ties, and that applies to credit, too,” the minister argued at the briefing.
He said there was no connection between the Chinese credit and transfers of Hungary’s European Union funding, according to a report by Hungarian state news wire MTI.
Originally, it was business news portal Portfolio which revealed last week that the Hungarian government took out a significant foreign currency loan amounting to EUR 1 bln from Chinese banks this spring, with the website citing data from the Hungarian Debt Management Agency (ÁKK). The loan itself, sourced from the China Development Bank, the Export-Import Bank of China, and the Hungarian branch of the Bank of China, is to be repaid by April 19, 2027, giving it a three-year term.
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