According to Reuters, Gergely Gulyas, chief of staff to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, said that the car factories being built in the country by Chinese automaker BYD and German automaker BMW are expected to start production in the second half of 2025, helping the country boost its economy.

“The current situation makes us optimistic about economic policy next year, and the new factories of BYD and BMW will start production in the second half of next year,” Gulyas said at a briefing on November 14.

Last year, BYD announced that it would build its first European passenger car factory in Szeged in southern Hungary, which will produce pure electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles for European customers. BMW is also building a car factory in Debrecen, an eastern Hungarian city, which will produce a new generation of long-range, fast-charging electric vehicles on the Neue Klasse platform.

Under Orban’s leadership, Hungary has become an important trade and investment partner of China. In Europe, Germany is Hungary’s main trading partner, and German automakers already operate several car factories in Hungary. In Central Europe, Orban also took the lead in encouraging Chinese electric vehicle and battery manufacturers to build factories in Hungary. In 2022, CATL also announced the construction of a battery factory in Debrecen, with a planned production capacity of 100GWh and an investment of 7.34 billion euros.

However, dragged down by the weakness of agriculture, industry and construction, Hungary’s economy shrank by 0.7% in the third quarter of this year from the previous quarter, falling into a technical recession. This is a problem for Orban, who hopes to revive the economy before the national election in 2026. According to the Hungarian government’s expectations, the country’s economy will grow by 3.4% in 2025.