Hungary’s economic growth is likely to have remained robust in the first quarter but could lose some momentum, emerging markets economists said ahead of the preliminary estimate, due to be published on Wednesday. JP Morgan’s analysts said they are revising up their forecast for the first quarter following the “unexpectedly strong” latest industrial production print and generally strong official activity data during the quarter.
London-based analysts now expect this week’s flash GDP report to show an increase of 4.8% on a quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted annual basis (up from 3%), which works out at around 3.7% on an annual basis. However, new industrial orders and the April surveys signal a loss of momentum at the start of the current quarter “and we expect growth to ease back to a 3% q/q clip in the second quarter”.
Earlier this week the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said it raised its forecast for Hungary’s economic growth in its Regional Economic Issues report, expecting a GDP growth of 2.7% this year. While the European Commission said in its Spring 2015 Economic Forecast last week that Hungary’s economy is expected to grow by 2.8% this year, the Hungarian government raised this year’s economic growth projection to 3.1 per cent in its recently submitted Convergence Programme.
via hungarymatters.hu photo: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images