BUDAPEST, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) -- German automobile giant Daimler inaugurated the Mercedes Benz Academy, a state of the art training facility next to its car factory in Kecskemet, central Hungary, on Friday.
"In the first eight months of this year, vehicle production increased by 6.3 percent (in Hungary); for this kind of performance, the work of professionals with modern knowledge is essential, so our most important task is to put as many talented young people as possible towards vocational training," Laszlo Palkovics, Hungarian Minister of Innovation and Technology said at the inauguration.
The academy occupies some 8,000 square meters on the premises of the Mercedes-Benz factory. Its investment was supported with a 622 million forint (about 2.2 million U.S. dollars) grant from the state of Hungary.
Palkovics added that nowadays every third vocational training student was involved in some dual training.
The factory played a pioneering role in introducing dual training in Kecskemet, Christian Wolff, managing director of Mercedes-Benz Manufacturing Hungary said.
The factory in Kecskemet employs about 4,000 workers and produced more than 190,000 Mercedes-Benz compact cars last year.
