The forint was trading at 380.5 at 8 a.m. on Thursday morning when the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH) released its latest foreign trade data, showing a record surplus.
In the news, the domestic currency rallied, reaching 379.4 against the euro in less than an hour, a near three-week high. In addition to the high foreign exchange growth, the weakening of the USD against the euro also contributed to the strengthening of the Hungarian currency.
The data also shows that the balance improved by almost EUR 3.2 billion on an annual basis,
thanks to a decrease in the value of exports by only 3.8% in EUR terms, while imports fell by 24.7%. The fall in imports was partly due to the sharp decline in energy prices after last year’s boom and to the negative impact of lower consumption and investment on the value of imports.
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The trade surplus of EUR 1.718 billion in November was an all-time high.
Due to the improvement in the external trade balance, the current large account deficit of 8.3% of GDP in 2022 could disappear last year, narrowing to 0.8% of GDP, according to calculations, and could further improve and reach balance this year. This, in addition to significantly improving our country’s balanced position, will also provide strong support for the forint to offset the negative impact on the exchange rate of the narrowing interest rate differential.
