When the honorary consul of Ecuador in Hungary, Iván Nyiri, drinks his morning coffee, he thinks of our country. Drink Brazilian, Colombian coffee. “I am very sorry that I cannot buy Ecuadorian coffee in Hungary. Despite the fact that his coffee is as good as other Latin American countries”, which is that it cannot be found.

In Hungary, “we are the first or second to drink coffee, but it comes from other countries”. Now that he was in Ecuador, he tasted Ecuadorian coffee together with four journalists who came with him on a tour of farms and plantations of bananas, cacao trees, shrimp, flowers and chocolate, and who would later show Ecuadorian production in the media of their country.

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“This mission can provide information to Hungarian people and companies that Ecuador exports coffee. Hungary imports a lot of shrimp, but not from Ecuador, but from other countries…”, comments the consul.

Hence the importance of the visits to the production sectors that were made between May 6 and 13 and which for the executive president of Corpei, Eduardo Egas, represents a possible trigger for a greater approach to the country to which Ecuador has tripled its exports. the last three years. In 2019, sales in Hungary were 730,000 USD, and in 2022, they will reach 2.65 million USD. Flowers represented 82%, canned fish 14%, made from bananas 2%.

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This is one of the activities carried out by the Embassy of Ecuador in Hungary, led by José Luis Salazar, in order to strengthen relations between the two countries and to make export products more present in that Eastern European country, an area where Russia and Ukraine are still present. in the conflict, even Hungary helped to evacuate Ecuadorian students and many stayed to study and work in Budapest.

“There were opportunities even before the war and there are, we are big consumers of bananas and fruits. We are big consumers of flowers, but unfortunately the flower arrives via the Netherlands. As Honorary Consul of Ecuador for the last 25 years, I have often requested that the route of the flower be changed, but it still continues via the Netherlands. To see if we can change this situation, there are many possibilities in Hungary”, says Nyiri.

The mission also visited major tourist attractions in Guayaquil and Quito and met with officials from the ministries of production, tourism and foreign relations.