HUNGARY
Analyst
Istvan Racz
Former Director, Central BankDatabanks
Recent Country Insights
Inflation's downtrend ended in April, just as expected
HUNGARY · In Brief · 10 May 2024
The headline rate of CPI-inflation was 0.7% mom, 3.7% yoy in April, the latter rising marginally, from 3.6% yoy in March. Core inflation still dropped, to 4.1% yoy in April from 4.4% yoy in the previous month. Non-fuel inflation also decreased, to 3.7% yoy from March's 4.1%. Consumer prices rose ...
Industrial output returned to a downward trend in March
HUNGARY · In Brief · 08 May 2024
Moving in a direction opposite to retail sales, industrial output fell by 3% mom, 2.9% yoy (volume terms, sda basis) in March. Here is the fixed-base chart (Dec 2010 = 100, KSH data): The recent downtrend of the industrial sector appears to reflect Europe's industrial weakness, as the same Hungar...
Good news on retail trade and VAT revenue
HUNGARY · In Brief · 07 May 2024
Retail trade grew by 2% mom, 3.6% yoy (volume terms, sda basis) in March, meaning consumer demand is indeed picking up at last. Here is the fixed-base chart (volume terms, December 2010 = 100), and then the graph on percentage yoy changes (with real wage growth also presented) a bit further below...
GDP somewhat stronger than expected in Q1, real wage growth very high in February
HUNGARY · In Brief · 30 Apr 2024
GDP grew by 0.8% qoq, 1.7% yoy on seasonally and calendar-adjusted basis in Q1, according to KSH's first estimate. Both figures represent material strengthening from Q4's upwardly revised 0% qoq, 0.5% yoy growth data. However, all this was only a moderate surprise: analysts, including us, expecte...
S&P affirmed Hungary's BBB-/Stable sovereign debt rating
HUNGARY · In Brief · 28 Apr 2024
This happened on Friday, April 26, the first preset review date for any of the top three rating agencies, as regards their sovereign ratings for Hungary. Hungary has a split rating (see chart), S&P keeping the government's debt rating in the lowest investment-grade category since January 2023, wh...
MNB base rate reduced by 50bps today, in line with broad-based consensus expectation
HUNGARY · In Brief · 23 Apr 2024
The base rate went down to 7.75% at today's regular rate-setting meeting of the Monetary Council. The monthly speed of the cut was thus reduced from March's 75bps and February's 100bps. Analyst widely expected this outcome; it was our prediction as well in the quarterly forecast report we release...
The end of interest rate cuts is near
HUNGARY · Forecast · 18 Apr 2024
Our new quarterly forecast changes moderately from the previous one, issued in January. We still expect considerable economic recovery in 2024, but we scaled back our GDP forecast given the weakness of European industry, especially car manufacturing, and the longer-than-expected time required for...
New opposition star announced his party, runs at European election in June
HUNGARY · In Brief · 15 Apr 2024
Péter Magyar, who appeared as an opposition politician just a few weeks ago, and has been ambitiously working to build himself up as a leading figure ever since then, has announced his new party (TISZA Respect and Freedom), and also the fact that this party has been registered by the National Ele...
CPI-inflation marginally down in March: no surprise at all
HUNGARY · In Brief · 11 Apr 2024
CPI-inflation for March came out this morning at 0.8% mom, 3.6% yoy, the latter marginally down from last month's 3.7%. This was exactly the same as analysts' median expectation in Portfolio.hu's usual monthly poll. What was driving prices up was unregulated services, household energy and fuels, ...