Even though a health fund has many advantages, this option has not yet caught on among Hungarians, despite the fact that they could cover the prices of private health care from that fund.Continue reading
GDP data came as a rather pleasant surprise, but were basically close to market expectations. In services, growth was mainly driven by the advance of private healthcare, reports Világgazdaság.
Analysts assessed the data after preliminary data released on Tuesday showed that Hungary’s GDP fell by 1.1 percent in the first quarter compared to a year earlier, and by 0.2 percent compared to the last three months of last year, according to seasonally and calendar-adjusted and balanced data.
Dávid Németh, senior analyst at K&H, also assessed the latest data as no surprise, as the volume of industrial production fell by 3.1 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of this year, while the decline in construction was 9.2 percent. Németh believes though that
on the production side, warehousing and transport may have been weak, while services and agriculture, which performed very poorly last year, may have had a positive impact on GDP.
Gábor Regős, Chief Economist at the Macronome Institute, believes that the data is significantly better than expected, thanks to a positive impact from the services. The analyst pointed to the health sector, highlighted in the KSH release, where the advance of private health care was the main driver of growth
Péter Virovácz, Chief Economist at ING, said that the expansion in services performance is a big surprise, while
the highlighting of healthcare may raise suspicions, as it is basically not a pull sector. Highlighting this segment may suggest that the more important areas within the services sector have not been able to deliver a meaningful performance either.
via Világgazdaság, Featured image: Pixabay
