Hungary: The global leader in the rolling stock market has signed respective agreements with Acemil, Hungary, as part of Xi Jinping’s visit to the country.
The cooperation entails the purchase of vehicles and the establishment of four local facilities for production, maintenance, research and development, and professional training. No further details have been disclosed.
The only information available about Acemil is that it is a private investment foundation. The ownership structure of Acemil remains undisclosed. The company’s website indicates that it leads a logistics working group, which includes representatives from China and Hungary, including Rail Cargo Hungaria, a subsidiary of OBB, Austria. In 2019, CRRC was commissioned by the latter to develop the Bison mainline locomotive to ensure service in the EU. The locomotive was unveiled at InnoTrans but is still undergoing testing.
CRRC currently has only one locomotive production facility in Europe, Vossloh Rolling Stock in Germany, which was acquired in 2020. Mostly in the wake of this deal, the EU has tightened controls on procurement and asset transactions. The new measures have been applied to CRRC in its participation in the tender for the supply of passenger trains to Bulgaria.
The Hungarian company Ganz-MaVag, in collaboration with a state foundation, is pursuing the acquisition of the Spanish train builder Talgo. However, the local government has expressed opposition to this move. In a recent ROLLINGSTOCK’s poll, a majority of respondents supported selling to Ganz-MaVag.
