The mayor of Budapest, Demszky Gábor, signed a joint cooperative working agreement with Liu Qu the Chinese Communist Party's cabinet secretary and Zhang Mao, Beijing's deputy mayor: uno.hu Fővárosunk együttműködést írt alá Pekinggel. The report uses the name Peking, which was also used in English up to the 1960's.

In the agreement, Budapest and Beijing declare their mutual interest in seeking means to develop their business, trade, cultural, educational and health links. Demszky underlined the fact that over the last few years the two countries have increasingly been looking at ways to cement their Cities' mutual interests in the business and cultural sphere.

The mayor also (stating the obvious) commented that China as the third largest country in terms of land mass and the single most populous nation was one that would play an increasingly important role in the world economics.

The Asian state was specifically important to Hungary as in the past 15 years around 3,500 businesses had been established by the Chinese. In Budapest itself there are around 7 thousand Chinese nationals, who in addition to other businesses have set up countless restaurants and eateries.

From June the 22nd to the 25th (next week), there will be a jointly organised exhibition of Chinese Business and Technology. It is hoped that this will provide further opportunies for Hungarian companies to find Chinese business partners.

Visit the wiki web for more background information on Beijing/Peking and Budapest.