As part of his working visit to Budapest, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Migration and Tunisians Abroad, Nabil Ammar, held talks with Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Péter Szijjártó. The meeting was followed by an extended working session attended by delegations from both countries in the framework of the work of the 5th session of the Tunisian-Hungarian Joint Economic Commission, held for the first time at the level of the foreign ministers of the two countries. During the meeting, the two sides reviewed bilateral relations, their prospects and ways to develop them in priority areas for both countries, as well as regional and international issues of common interest, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The two Ministers highlighted the richness and diversity of areas of cooperation, particularly in agriculture, water management, ICT, the green economy, tourism, higher education and scientific research. On this occasion, they reaffirmed their desire to further develop bilateral relations, given the promising opportunities for cooperation and the mutual trust and interests that exist between the two countries. Nabil Ammar stressed the willingness of the Hungarian authorities to support Tunisia in its efforts to cope with the effects of the global food and energy crisis, climate change and its negative impact on the Tunisian economy. He welcomed the “positive response” of the Hungarian authorities to the possibility of recruiting qualified Tunisian workers in Hungarian economic sectors suffering from labour shortages, within an organised framework whose mechanisms will be defined by experts from both countries. The two ministers also expressed their common desire to establish fruitful cooperation in the fields of rail transport and mining. The work of the Fifth Tunisian-Hungarian Joint Economic Commission led to the signing of two memoranda of understanding on cooperation in the fields of agriculture and archives. For his part, the Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade took the opportunity to respond positively to the Tunisian proposal to increase the number of scholarships for Tunisian students from 200 to 250 from the start of the next academic year. The two ministers also held a press conference to review the results of the fifth meeting of the Joint Economic Commission and the position of the two countries on certain issues of common interest.
Source: EN – Agence Tunis Afrique Presse