HUNGARY
Analyst
Istvan Racz
Former Director, Central BankDatabanks
Recent Country Insights
Today's Monetary Council went just as expected
HUNGARY · In Brief · 25 Mar 2025
The MNB base rate was left at 6.5% and the interest rate corridor remained at 5.5% to 7.5%. At the press conference held after the meeting by Mr. Varga, the new governor, it has been stressed that the base rate may be left unchanged for a longer period, without any specification on how long that ...
Monetary Council tomorrow: no rate change expected
HUNGARY · In Brief · 24 Mar 2025
This will be the first regular monthly rate-setting meeting chaired by Mr. Varga. In addition, it will be the one to discuss the Q1 inflation report. So, a really important event to watch anyway. Importantly, analysts are unanimously predicting no rate change from 6.5%, according to Portfolio.hu'...
The election campaign has started: major social policy measures announced
HUNGARY · Report · 21 Mar 2025
European gas prices have corrected substantially in recent weeks, more on the warming weather than on peace prospects. We still see no realistic prospect for the restart of the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine. Hungary finished the winter period with higher-than-usual gas reserves, and it c...
Inflation rose further in February: an administrative ceiling comes on retail trade margins for a set of basic food items
HUNGARY · In Brief · 11 Mar 2025
Headline CPI-inflation in February was reported at 0.8% mom, 5.6% yoy this morning, the latter up from 5.5% yoy in January. Core inflation looked bad as well, at 0.6% mom, 6.2% yoy, the latter up from 5.8% in January. Non-fuel inflation, which we estimate from the official KSH data, was 0.9% mom,...
PM Orbán vetoed in the European Council: will this be consequential?
HUNGARY · In Brief · 08 Mar 2025
On March 6, the European Council held a 'special' (extraordinary) summit meeting, in preparation for the regular summit set for March 20-21. The Council did not make any decision on this occasion, but it published a set of conclusions on two subjects: a €800bn plan to rearm Europe, and EU policie...
Industry further down, retail sales further up: nothing changed in January
HUNGARY · In Brief · 06 Mar 2025
In January, industrial output grew by 0.8% mom, but it fell by 3.9% yoy, the latter after -7.8% yoy in December and -4.3% yoy in the whole of Q4 2024, all in seasonally and day-adjusted volume terms. The moderate uptick in January could be somewhat promising, even if not exactly the jump start of...
Ahead of a special European Council meeting on March 6; where does Hungary stand?
HUNGARY · In Brief · 04 Mar 2025
Amidst the political whirlwind of recent days, created and actively fuelled by the US president around Ukraine/Russia/Europe and a potentially destructive trade war due to his new penalty-level tariffs on various items in various directions, it may be useful to establish where Hungary's governmen...
More news on fiscal policy, more bad than good, today
HUNGARY · In Brief · 27 Feb 2025
On the same day that Cabinet Minister Guyás told the press that the government remains committed to meet this year's 3.7% of GDP fiscal deficit target (after the preliminary actual 4.8% deficit ratio in 2024, both figures referring to general government by Eurostat methodology), the economy minis...
No surprise from the last Monetary Council rate-setting meeting chaired by outgoing governor Matolcsy
HUNGARY · In Brief · 25 Feb 2025
As governor Matolcsy is set to leave the MNB on March 3, today's was the last regular monthly rate-setting meeting chaired by him in the Monetary Council. There was absolutely no surprise caused by the Council on this occasion: the base rate was kept at 6.5%, the interest rate corridor at 5.5-7.5...