Mission

The Oriental Business and Innovation Center (OBIC) was established by the Budapest Business University and the Central Bank of Hungary in 2016.

OBIC's overall goal is to improve the competitiveness of the Hungarian economy by contributing to a better understanding of the East Asian region. To achieve its objective, OBIC aspires to become a leading institution in oriental business studies - not only in Hungary, but in the broader Central European region as well - by the application of its cutting-edge knowledge and efficient operation. As such, OBIC also plays a major role in the implementation of the international strategy of BBU. In its work OBIC concentrates on the following target countries: India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the People's Republic of China, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and many others in the Asia-Pacific region.

Why?

By joint collaboration, OBIC was established due to various factors. The 2008-2009 economic crisis in Europe brought about a need to diversify trade and investment relations in Hungary. In principle, this need for international diversification, coupled with the evolving international economic and political environment, has opened up new prospects for economic relations and knowledge-sharing between Southeast Asia and Hungary - despite the geographical distance -, and increased the demand for open-minded, culturally skilled and experienced specialists. The "Eastward Opening" policy of the Hungarian government since 2010 has been just one governmental initiative to which OBIC can provide significant feedback by broadening the economic, political and cultural knowledge base through strengthening the exchange of ideas, scholars and students.

Activities

To achieve its objectives, OBIC uses a variety of tools and instruments along the following lines:

• OBIC offers free Oriental language courses (Chinese, Korean, and Indonesian) for BBU students and professors, and an
• East Asian Culture and Management Training (only in Hungarian at the moment).
• Through its student mobility program OBIC provides scholarships for BBU students to travel to East Asian countries and gather first-hand experience in the form of student exchanges and summer school.
• OBIC also supports the mobility of researchers, thereby contributing to academic collaboration and the circulation of skills and ideas.
• OBIC is dedicated to promoting advanced and focused research in order to provide wider knowledge.
• Last but not least, OBIC regularly organizes various events (conferences, workshops) related to the region in fields such as international business management, international relations, finance and commerce in order to educate and offer platforms for intellectual and academic exchange.