Hungary’s cash flow-based budget, excluding local councils, ran a 254.6 billion forint (EUR 757.1m) deficit at the end of February, reaching 69.37% of the 367.0 billion forint full-year target, the finance ministry said in a preliminary release. In February alone, the general government deficit reached 345 billion. The central budget deficit reached 283.7 billion forints, while the separate state funds were 36.3 billion forints in the black and the social insurance funds were 7.2 billion forints in the red.
The finance ministry said Hungary’s economic performance in 2019 provides a solid base for this year, too. “The government intends to continue strengthening the competitiveness of the Hungarian economy in the interest of keeping the pace of growth at least two percentage points over the EU average,” it added.