Hungary’s government debt-to-GDP ratio decreased by more than 4 percentage points over the past three years, Minister of State for Taxation Affairs Gábor Orbán said at a press conference in Budapest.

As the Minister of State added, the country’s general government debt-to-GDP ratio was 81.1 percent in the second quarter of this year. Referring to data by the Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office, Gábor Orbán stressed that while the level of debt within the entire EU increased between the first and second quarter, the respective figure for Hungary declined along with that of five other member states (the Czech Republic, Germany, Lithuania, Latvia and Luxembourg).

The Minister of State underlined that besides Hungary the only country which has managed to decrease the level of government debt since the second quarter of 2010 was Latvia.
In the opinion of Gábor Orbán, the positive trend reversal will in the near future further bolster the downward trend regarding Hungary’s government debt level.

Responding to a question on the S&P’s release which confirmed Hungary’s “BB/B” credit rating with a negative outlook, the Minister of State remarked that as the debt level of Hungary has been on a sustainable downward path, not only will a downgrade prove unjustified but the credit rating agency will rather be prompted to remove Hungary from the negative watch list.

(Ministry for National Economy)