Hungary will keep its budget deficit this year and next under 3% of economic output and will not need to introduce new taxes, Economy Minister Mihály Varga told press.

Varga also said the government would maintain its growth forecast of 0.7% for this year. “We now see that 0.7-1.0% growth could realistically occur this year,” he said, adding that the state of the Hungarian economy gave room for cautious optimism.

Varga spoke about a possible foreign currency bond issue. “For the February issue we did not use up the whole limit, so another 600-700 million dollar issue is still possible.” Hungary can comfortably finance itself from the forint markets, too,
he added.

Varga said the greatest achievement of the first half of this year was Hungary’s exit from the European Union’s excessive deficit procedure launched nine years ago. He noted that when he took over the ministry in March this outcome had been in doubt as the European Commission insisted Hungary could not keep its deficit targets in 2013 and 2014. He said that there was currently no reason to introduce new taxes or contributions. “If you look at the state budget alone, there is no need even for a new tax on adverts”.

(MTI)