BUDAPEST, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Ambassadors and defence attaches of NATO members based in Budapest met on Wednesday at the U.S. embassy to discuss Hungary's policy of "economic neutrality", including its ties with Russia and China, the embassy said.

The meeting came a day before Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto was due to speak at a security conference in the Belarusian capital Minsk, where other participants include Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has been seeking to attract Chinese EV and battery manufacturing plants to Hungary, says his country, a member of NATO and the European Union, does not want to be squeezed into any bloc and wants to keep trading with Russia and China as well as its Western partners.

Orban, whose government has maintained close ties with Moscow during the war in Ukraine despite the EU trying to isolate Russia, has said Budapest will opt for a strategy of "economic neutrality".

The U.S. embassy said Wednesday's meeting discussed "the security aspects" of this policy, with Ambassador David Pressman again criticising the Hungarian government's ties with Russia and China.

"Hungary's newly announced policy of economic ‘neutrality’ and its growing dependencies on Moscow and Beijing have security implications for the United States and Euro-Atlantic interests. We appreciated the opportunity to discuss Hungary's new policy with our Allies," Pressman said according to a statement.

Orban's chief of staff told a briefing in response to the ambassador's comments that he suggested Pressman "study the U.S.-China trade volumes as those have been growing massively".

Earlier this month, Germany's ambassador to Budapest urged Hungarian public figures to speak out against actions she said were eroding the trust of Hungary's Western allies, in an unusually critical speech.

The EU was particularly incensed in July by what Orban described as a Ukraine peace mission that included holding talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin without the backing of Brussels and other EU member states.

Hungary currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Council, which represents EU national governments.

(Reporting by Krisztina Than Editing by Gareth Jones)

((krisztina.than@thomsonreuters.com;))