Mr Szijjártó believes that the West Coast of the United States offers Hungary very special opportunities both from the respect of the national economy and nation strategy; this is why he visited the most significant IT businesses and Tesla in and around San Francisco, on the West Coast.

The Minister also met with the representatives of Hungarian national communities, paid a visit to the Hungarian Catholic mission where Hungarian Benedictine monks operate the best high school of the West Coast, and also had talks with members of the Hungarian Reformed Church community.

Mr Szijjártó met with the executives of more than twenty Silicon Valley IT businesses, while in the factory of Tesla he had talks with the company’s Business Development Manager and general counsel. The Minister stressed that in the new era electromobility and autonomous vehicles will constitute the focus of the automotive industry, and this is posing particular challenges to Hungary as well, given than 29.5 per cent of its industrial output originates from the automotive industry. It is therefore absolutely crucial from the viewpoint of the economy’s success in the future whether Hungary will be able to succeed in this new world era of the automotive industry, he added.

“This depends on the cooperation we shall be able to forge with the players of the automotive industry who will be the drivers of this new era”, the Minister said. In his view, there is no doubt that Tesla will be one of the key players of this era both in respect of autonomous cars and electromobility. Demand for the cars manufactured by Tesla is growing extremely rapidly world-wide, and the company is therefore continuously expanding its manufacturing capacity as well as its staff at a rapid pace, he said.

“In light of this, the purpose of our meeting today was to place Hungary on the map which is in the heads of Tesla executives – the map of countries which see the automotive industry as a particular priority”, Mr Szijjártó said. He drew attention to the fact that Hungary is one of the flagships of the European automotive industry, and Tesla particularly appreciated the tax benefits provided in Hungary in connection with research, development and investments, our low tax rates and the fact that Hungary was the first country in Central Europe which adopted an electromobility strategy. Hungary has the highest number of electric car charging points (403) among Central European countries, and as part of a government programme, their number will increase to more than three thousand by 2019. The budget provides grants for the purchase of electric cars, and cars with green number plates are eligible for a number of benefits, he said.

Mr Szijjártó believes that Tesla very much appreciated these facts as well as the emphasis Hungary is placing on the automotive industry. The company decided to install two supercharger stations in Hungary by the end of next year: one in Győr, while the other one in Nagykanizsa. This is important because charger stations such as these only operate at present in the Western and Northern parts of Europe, he underlined.

“We may be among the first in Central Europe, Tesla supercharger stations will be installed which will evidently open up a new dimension in relations between the company and Hungary. We have under any circumstances managed to achieve that the executives of Tesla now appreciate that Hungary looks upon the automotive industry as a priority, and the country is one of the automotive industry’s flagships in Europe”, Mr Szijjártó said