On Tuesday, The official visit of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán began to Georgia. A face-to-face meeting took place between Viktor Orban and Irakli Garibashvili, after which Orban and Irakli Gharibashvili held a joint briefing.
The gross domestic product of Hungary is USD 189 billion, and the GDP per capita in current prices is USD 18.7 thousand, which puts it ahead of only 4 EU countries, Poland, Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria.
Economic ties between Georgia and Romania are quite small. In 2022, the trade turnover between the two countries was USD 60.6 million, of which 95% was Georgia's imports (USD 57.5 million), and exports were only USD 3.1 million.
Medicines are the main trade goods, as Hungary is one of the largest producers of medicines in the European Union, among which the largest company is Gedeon Richter. In the 8th month of 2023, Georgia purchased goods worth USD 46 million from Hungary, of which USD 24.3 million accounted for medicines, followed by meat products with USD 2.4 million, auto imports with USD 2.3 million, toothpaste worth USD 2 million and pesticides worth USD 1 million.
Georgia's export is much more modest, which was only USD 600 thousand in 8 months of 2023. Among them, only two goods exceeded USD 100 thousand - these are clothes in the amount of USD 200 thousand and fruit juices in the amount of USD 113 thousand. The third place in exports is the re-export of mobile phones in the amount of USD 88 thousand.
As for other economic ties, in the first half of 2023, FDI worth USD 2.7 million came from Hungary to Georgia. Georgia receives about USD 2-3 million of Hungarian investments every year.
Georgia-Hungary tourist connections are quite small. In the first half of 2023, 2,564 Hungarian citizens entered Georgia, which is 70% more than the previous year. For comparison, visitors from all EU countries made 162,000 visits to Georgia in the first half of this year, of which 1.6% came from Hungarian citizens.
In 2022, 4,000 visits from Hungary were made to Georgia, and in 2021, Hungarian citizens made 3,500 visits to Georgia.
