Chinese President Xi Jinping was greeted with military honours in Budapest on Thursday ahead of talks with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Hungary is the last stop on Xi’s trip to Europe, which took him to France and Serbia earlier in the week.

Xi and Orbán are due to sign more than a dozen bilateral agreements on Thursday afternoon, the government in Budapest said.

Hungary is the only European Union country participating in China’s Belt and Road infrastructure and investment initiative.

With friendly relations with Beijing, Orbán wants to create a counterweight to the situation in the EU, where he is often isolated.

China is building a railway link some 350 kilometres long between the Hungarian capital Budapest and the Serbian capital Belgrade.

In Hungary, China is also building large factories for the production of electric cars and the associated batteries.

For months, Hungary has seen has seen protests by environmentalists and legal challenges against the Chinese battery factory planned in Debrecen in the north of the country.