Szeged, Hungary’s third largest city with some 160,000 residents in southern Hungary, has seen its biggest investment project in decades announced last week. Both opposition Mayor László Botka and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó, in separate public addresses of their own, have informed about the Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer BYD opening a new factory in the city.
The new plant and industrial park will cover about 300 hectares (740 acres) and will create about 3,000 new jobs in the area.
BYD, which stands for Build Your Dream, is the leading EV manufacturer in the world right now. They were founded in 2003 in Shenzhen, China. Also, they are a publicly traded company, listed on the Hong Kong and Shenzhen Stock Exchange, so their annual financial reports are available to the public. In the fiscal year ending in September 2023, they pulled in $578.65 billion in revenue.
BYD has spent months scouting for a new European location leading up to the deal made with the Hungarian and the local Szeged municipal government. During the negotiation process, the Chinese company’s leaders were impressed by the reputation of the academic institutions in town and its great infrastructure, as the local news site Szeged.hu reports. The company also saw the strategic value in Szeged being close to both the Serbian and the Romanian border.
Manufacturing in the new Szeged BYD plant is expected to start in 2025.
This is all part of a bigger project by the Chinese auto company, opening to the European market. Currently, there are five BYD EV models available on the Old Continent across 170 dealerships. However, the company is aiming to increace those numbers and be among the top five EV manufacturers i Europe in the near future.
At a press conference, Foreign Minister Szijjártó said ‘BYD will be producing electric vehicles at their new Szeged plant—electric vehicles, that is, not batteries,’ referring to the controversy surrounding the CATL battery factory in Debrecen, which some fear pollute the environment too much.
‘The construction of the BYD plant in Szeged will be one of the biggest investment projects in Hungary’s history. BYD will create thousands of new jobs in Szeged with this new factory,’ Minister Szijjártó lauded the great new business deal.
Related articles:
