The Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture has announced that German group FAKT will invest one billion euros in a horticultural production, processing and logistics centre in Hegyeshalom, western Hungary.
“This investment is the greatest and most complex agricultural and food industrial project of the last few decades,” Hungary’s agricultural minister István Nagy said. The site will cover an area of 330 hectares, making it one of the biggest horticultural centres in Central Europe.
Aside from production and logistics facilities, the plant will include a fish farm, greenhouses, cooling containers, a conference hall and accommodation.
“The investment will unite the pillars of smart, affordable and sustainable energy,” board member of Hungarian energy company E.On Zsolt Jamniczky said in a statement, adding that energetically the project can be a flagship for the whole of Europe.
During a joint press conference with Mr Nagy, CEO and President of FAKT Hubert Schulte-Kemper said the company had chosen western Hungary as it is located in the Budapest-Vienna-Bratislava triangle and it has “great infrastructure in all directions”. The CEO added that the investment would create 5,000 jobs in the long term.
The FAKT project is the third highest-value foreign investment into the Hungarian economy in recent years, surpassed only by the Mercedes-Benz plant in the city of Kecskemét and the soon-to-be-built BMW plant in Miskolc, eastern Hungary.