Julie Godin, GGGI European Lead and Kristóf Szabó, President of HEPA signing the MoU at Ökoindustria 2021
April 28, Budapest, Hungary – The signature of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) and the Hungarian Export Promotion Agency (HEPA) took place at the opening ceremony of Ökoindustria 2021, green industrial expo in Budapest.
In 2016, Hungary became the 25th Member of GGGI, an international, intern-governmental organization championing green growth which was followed by setting up GGGI’s European regional office in Budapest in 2019 thanks to the support of the Hungarian Government. Since 2017, GGGI has been designing and carrying out projects at national and regional levels with the support of the Ministry for Innovation and Technology (MIT). GGGI’s activities included assisting in designing the Western Balkan Green Center Nonprofit LLC., developing bankable green project concepts in the Western Balkans, finetuning Hungary’s National Clean Development Strategy and supporting the domestic implementation of the European Green Deal.
The partnership between HEPA and GGGI aims to further strengthen bilateral and multilateral institutional framework programs to increase green investment flows in the region. This MoU intends to coordinate green initiatives with other Central European countries to champion green growth in Europe and support green initiatives in thematic areas that are particularly relevant to the Western Balkans and Eastern European countries, such as clean air and green transition.
The agreement also targets improving multi-directional knowledge sharing and learning with a focus on Western Balkan countries. This cooperation fosters sharing knowledge of the green projects and climate action in the region and inform about policy and regulatory planning to accelerate the green transition.
On the first day of Ökoindustria, GGGI also held a business-to-business, workshop with the participation of HEPA to close a bilateral project funded by MIT, Government of Hungary. The project implemented in the Serbian city of Sombor, aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase the climate resilience of Serbian cities, partly through know-how and technology transfer between Hungary and Serbia. In line with the HEPA-GGGI cooperation, this project focused on green trade exchanges in the export and investment promotion field.