Magazine: An opening to the Arab world

Last autumn the Arab-Hungarian Association for Fostering Bilateral Economic Cooperation was established. President Dr György János Kiss, member of the board Abdulrahman Raad and funding member Márta Szabó told our magazine that there are excellent economic opportunities in the Arab world, offering great business potential for Hungarian SMEs. An institutional form – a ‘business club’ – was needed to facilitate business matchmaking and to act as some kind of filter – this is the reason why the association was established. The association is active in Central and Eastern Europe and in the Arab countries of the Near East, trying to establish economic relations in various fields such as education, building and construction, nanotechnology, IT security, the pharmaceutical industry, agricultural trade, real estate development, etc. The association set up Arhunion Kft. to take care of the operative organisation of projects. New members are admitted with two reliable recommendations or the written recommendation of an embassy. A small membership fee has to be paid. Hungary’s intention is to import food products, especially tropical fruits, and to export technology products, food products, animal feed, pharmaceutical products and processing industry technology. The association hopes that business partners from the Arab world will find real business opportunities at Foodapest: they will organise business meetings where Hungarian enterprises can find new markets and Arab enterprises can find Hungarian investment projects to finance.