BUDAPEST, October 12. /TASS/. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban will travel to Beijing from October 16-18 to attend the Belt and Road Initiative international conference and hold talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the office of the Hungarian leader said.

A spokesman for the Hungarian prime minister didn’t say whether Orban will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is also planning to attend the conference in the Chinese capital.

"Next Wednesday, the prime minister will take part in the Belt and Road Initiative forum in Beijing, where he will deliver a speech. Before that, on Monday and Tuesday, he is scheduled to have bilateral talks with Chinese leaders: first with the head of government and then with the head of state," the spokesman for the Hungarian prime minister said in response to a TASS inquiry.

The spokesman didn’t respond to the question whether Orban is scheduled to meet with Putin in China.

The Russian president earlier said that he had accepted the Chinese president's invitation to come to Beijing for the conference of the Chinese infrastructure project also known as the One Belt, One Road. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov didn’t name the dates of the president's visit to China, although he said they had been determined. Putin is scheduled to hold talks with Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the event.

Orban is expected to be the only Western leader to attend the forum. In recent years, Hungary has been actively calling for developing economic cooperation between the EU and China and has positioned itself as a sort of a bridge between East and West. Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has repeatedly stated that Hungary is proud to be the first EU country to join the Belt and Road Initiative, which it did in 2015.

The initiative was proposed by Xi Jinping in 2013 to boost economic and trade investment projects involving as many countries as possible. More than 150 countries and international organizations have already joined it.