The number of Qingdao’s overseas economic partners has just increased to 62 after an agreement signed with the Central European city of Budapest in Hungary.

The memorandum for building an economic partnership between the Qingdao and Budapest was signed at a business dialogue in Budapest on Sept 22. With its signing, the two sides agreed to advance bilateral economic and trade cooperation on a reciprocal basis.

The two sides are interested in cooperation in the fields of trade, machine manufacturing, telecommunications, and food processing, as well as education and tourism. They aim to build an information sharing mechanism, exchange visits on a regular basis, and help organize promotional activities for each other.

As the second largest city in the region, Budapest has a population of 2.5 million, and is the economic and cultural center of the country, taking up a 40 percent GDP of the national total. As an important tourism destination in central and eastern Europe, the city has become a main target of Chinese investment in the region.

A trade and logistics industrial park has established in the city, with close business connections to the Qingdao Eurasian Industrial Park in Jiaozhou city of Qingdao, Shandong.