In an interview to taxation and accountancy periodical SZAKma, Deputy State Secretary for Budgetary Affairs Péter Benő Banai drew attention to prognoses by analysts of international banks that predict economic growth to be in line with -- or even above -- Government estimates.

In next year’s budget, the Cabinet calculates with an economic growth of 2 percent, a government debt-to-GDP ratio of 2.9 percent and an inflation rate of 2.4 percent, and as Péter Benő Banai emphasised the budget bill submitted to Parliament is based on a realistic and achievable economic outlook.

As the Deputy State Secretary stressed, the Ministry’s expectations have lately been confirmed by several renowned economists: according to the London analyst team of Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, the performance of the Hungarian economy is anticipated to improve by 2.6 percent in 2014, while the London-based experts of Barclays and HSBC are expecting growth of 2 percent.

“These announcements, in my opinion, are signalling that there has been a positive trend reversal within the Hungarian economy – which is also acknowledged by international experts, the Deputy State Secretary added.
Péter Benő Banai explained that thanks to Government measures the disposable income of households is to increase which will boost consumption. Public utility tariff cuts, lower burden on foreign currency debtors, higher wages and incomes in real terms as well as the continuous increase of employment have been bolstering consumer demand.

These favourable effects are expected to strengthen in the remainder of this year which in turn will boost household consumption. He added that parallel to a pick-up of investment, external market demand, manufacturing industry output and exports are also anticipated to improve in the second half of this year and thus every GDP component indicates expansion.

“Auspicious processes which emerged this year are expected to be reinforced as of 2014 and I believe that growth will be based on an increasingly balanced economic structure. Thus, a full-year GDP growth figure of 2 percent can be safely prognosticated,” Péter Benő Banai said.

(Ministry for National Economy)