Automotive News Europe — 2024-01-10
Automotive Industry
Hungary will undertake a 700-bn-forint ($2 bn) infrastructure development project in Debrecen that will help transform the country’s second-largest city into one of Europe’s biggest battery production hubs.
The upgrade will affect transportation, roads and potable and waste-water management, Construction Minister Janos Lazar said at a briefing in Debrecen on Tuesday 9 January.
Lazar said the investments come on top of direct subsidies to companies such as BMW and Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd.
Debrecen has attracted €12.5 bn ($13.6 billion) in foreign direct investment over the past eight years, including from BMW, CATL and other battery makers and their suppliers.
The jobs those companies will bring to the area will boost Debrecen’s population by 25% to 250,000, requiring further investments beyond the $2 bn just announced, Lazar said.
The city’s industrial park space has grown tenfold in that period to more than 40,000 hectares (98,800 acres), an economic lifeline that’s poised to push Hungary, with a population of less than 10 m people, to become the fourth-largest producer of batteries globally, after China, the US and Germany, according to BNEF data.