ZTE’s €200m contract win to build a mobile network for the Telenor’s Hungarian unit is the latest in a spate of Chinese dealmaking in central and eastern Europe. The deal, revealed in Monday’s Financial Times, underscores China’s growing influence in the region, which some companies view as a testing ground or springboard before entering western markets.
In addition to selling electronics, Chinese companies are building roads in Poland, financing power-plants in Serbia and building cars in Bulgaria. In Hungary alone, trade with China totaled $6.2bn in 2009.
And while it is not technically part of “emerging Europe”, hard-up Greece is also set to benefit from billions of euros of shipbuilding and construction deals.