Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and E.ON Chairman-CEO Johannes Teyssen have signed a letter of intent, which states that state-owned energy firm MVM will buy the German utility company's gas trading and storage units located in Hungary.

The Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) established its Hungarian office in 1992 with the purpose of further developing economic exchanges with Hungary. Diplomacy & Trade has recently published this article on this organization.

“I’m a Jew. I ask to be put on the Jobbik list,” says the sign at a demonstration, which was one of the protests against the words this Monday about “tallying Jews” by Márton Gyöngyösi, representing the far-right Jobbik party in Hungarian Parliament.

Budapest Airport is set to develop a new business park area on the southern edge of the airport. Although, the area has been out of use for long time, it was marked in the development plans as the site of a future business and commercial park.

The volume of Hungary’s retail sales declined by 0.4% month on month in September, which marks the continuation of this year’s forlorn trend. The sector suffered the biggest contraction of the past two and a half years in the third quarter.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) has downgraded Hungary from BB+ to BB, while keeping stable outlook for the country's debt. The Hungarian currency started to weaken but the Hungary dismissed the downgrading as a “hollow measure”.

The number of Hungarians studying abroad under the Erasmus student exchange project in the 2011/2012 academic year increased by about 4.5% compared to the previous year. the numbers have been steadily rising over the past years.

French vegetable producer Bonduelle has built a new, 5,000-square-metre warehouse in Békéscsaba, southeast Hungary, in a EUR 1.5 million investment project. The company says it has further investment plans lined up.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Commission will wait for the approval of the 2013 budget and then there could be further development in the current negotiating stage, Hungary’s chief aid negotiator Mihály Varga said this Tuesday.

A recent issue of Diplomacy & Trade has run a piece on the Japanese organization SHOKOKAI in its Japanese country focus section. The organization is exchanging information that can be useful for the management of the Japanese companies present in Hungary.

The Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs follows with great concern the situation in the Middle East, resulting in the Gaza Strip rocket attacks on Israel, which responded militarily to protect its population, the Ministry said in a statement.

The number of foreigners living in Hungary for a longer period of time has increased by nearly 50%, from 142,000 to 205,000, since Hungary joined the European Union in 2004, the Hungarian business weekly HVG published this Thursday.

A Hungarian court sentenced Croatian Deputy Prime Minister Radimir Cacic to one year and ten months in prison on Wednesday. Cacic, 62, received the sentence in absentia for causing a fatal road accident in which two people died in Hungary in 2010.

Fighter aircraft of the Hungarian air force will be in charge of policing the airspace of Slovenia and the Baltic states under a NATO agreement, Defense Minister Csaba Hende said on Tuesday. These NATO countries do not have an air force of their own.

Hungary offers a total of 87 investment opportunities in various sectors including 35 in tourism, 17 in renewable energy, 15 in IT and telecommunications to Arab investors at the 1st Arab Hungarian Economic Forum held in Budapest November 12-13.