Hungary’s cash-flow-based budget, excluding local councils, had a 3,487.6 billion forint (EUR 9.2bn) deficit at the end of October, the finance ministry said in a preliminary release of data. The central budget deficit reached 3,509.7 billion forints and the social security funds were 142.3 billion in the red, the ministry said. Separate state funds had a surplus of 164.4 billion forints. Household energy subsidies cost the treasury 1,301.4 billion forints by the end of October, compared with 165 billion in the same period last year, it noted.
Government spending related to programmes financed by the European Union came to 2,151.2 billion in Jan-Oct, while EU transfers were worth 1,191.5 billion. Spending on pensions reached 4,724.3 billion forints and on health care 1,893.1 billion forints by the end of October.
Expenditures on compensation for suburban and long-distance public transport reached 576 billion forints, 88.4 billion more than in the first ten months of 2022. The full-year deficit target is 3,400.2 billion forints. The deficit reached 4,753.4 billion forints in 2022. The ministry said the unfavourable global economic environment and the energy crisis caused by the protracted war in Ukraine and Brussels’s sanctions policies had resulted in extraordinary expenditures, adding, however, that the budget would guarantee the preservation of the value of pensions, the continuation of family subsidies and the caps on household utility bills.