The full-year gross domestic production forecast of Hungary has been raised to 3.1% in light of recent great figures, said Varga Mihály on Monday. The Minister for National Economy spoke about positive and negative risk, referred to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and described the new forecast.
The minister mentioned that the government had projected GDP growth of 2.3% in the country’s updated Convergence program in April. According to Varga, the positive change in forecast is due to the stable and dynamic growth of Hungary, supported by a healthy structure, can also be attributed to added value in the production sectors and to a pickup in domestic demand.
He added that the new prognosis coincided with the expectations of foreign as the minister also spoke about risks. For positive risks of the forecast, Varga named the possibility of a stronger-than-expected external demand, eventually boosting export and industrial production. For a negative risk, the minister named the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, which could be harmful for Europe. Because of the escalating nature of the conflict, Varga emphasized, the ministry decided to leave the leave its 2.5% GDP growth forecast for 2015 unchanged.
The gross domestic production of Hungary grew by 3.9% in the second quarter of the year, revealed the Central Statistics Office (Központi Statitsztikai Hivatal, KSH) last week. The GDP growth has not been at such heights in the last eight years as both foreign and Hungarian analysts already predict an above 3% growth for the complete year. The last time the country saw such a growth was in the first quarter of 2006. (MTI)
MTI photo Lajos Soós