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White smoke from Brussels - the Commission unblocked access to €10.2bn of cohesion policy grants today
HUNGARY · In Brief · 13 Dec 2023

Almost exactly one year after the EU Council's blocking decision, the EU Commission today announced the partial unblocking of the government's access to the cohesion policy development grants earmarked for Hungary in the EU's medium-term budget for 2021-2027. Just as widely expected for the last ...

The EU has received a letter from the Hungarian minority in Ukraine - not exactly what might have been expected
HUNGARY · In Brief · 12 Dec 2023

The Alliance of Hungarian Democrats in Ukraine has released an open letter, addressed to Charles MIchel, president of the EU Council, and Viktor Orbán, Hungary's prime minister, on its Facebook page over the last 24 hours (please, see below), emphatically urging EU decision-makers to support the ...

Last-minute attempts to bring Mr. Orbán into the pro-Ukrainian camp within the EU
HUNGARY · In Brief · 12 Dec 2023

It is now more hours than days that are left until this week's scheduled EU decisions, which appear to be critical for Hungary, prospectively determining the country's future, substantially and for quite a long while. First, the Commission is set to decide on its assessment and recommendation as ...

Good inflation figure reported for November
HUNGARY · In Brief · 09 Dec 2023

The KSH published the November CPI-inflation data yesterday. We skipped the day without releasing a note on it for two reasons: 1) Essentially everything came out as expected; and 2) The Hungarian analyst was busy surviving the first few days of his now regular once-a-year hit from Covid, apparen...

Two new stories: November CPI and EU funds
HUNGARY · In Brief · 07 Dec 2023

November data for CPI-inflation is due tomorrow. Following 9.9% yoy for the headline rate in October, Portfolio.hu's usual analyst poll has come out with median expectation of 8.2% yoy, within a 7.8-8.4% yoy range, to be followed by by a 6.2% yoy median expected for December, the latter within a ...

Poor retail sales and industry data for October
HUNGARY · In Brief · 06 Dec 2023

Retail sales (volume terms, seasonally and day-adjusted) shrank by 0.3% mom, 6.9% yoy, the latter following -7.7% yoy in September. The Q3 figure was -7.7% yoy, and January-October was a 9.1% yoy fallback in total. The fixed-base chart (December 2010 = 100, courtesy of KSH) looked like the one be...

Two short stories: EU funds and detailed GDP
HUNGARY · In Brief · 01 Dec 2023

1. Free Europe and Népszava (an opposition daily newspaper in Hungary) have reported in unison, referring to unnamed sources in Brussels, that the EU Commission is now expected to unfreeze the €10.5bn worth of 2021-2027 cohesion funds which are currently blocked only by their requirements regardi...

The MNB is under friendly fire: rating agencies appear to be worried
HUNGARY · In Brief · 28 Nov 2023 · 1 response

A few days ago, we wrote in our monthly report that the government may step up supporting the MNB's strong forint policy towards end-2023, because of its desire to present a materially decreasing debt ratio. But so far, actual events do not seem to support our forecast. The MNB has received criti...

What do El Niño, influenza and the car manufacturing industry have in common?
HUNGARY · Report · 24 Nov 2023

The three things mentioned in the title are all key factors that contributed positively to Hungary’s otherwise mixed macro performance in 2023. El Niño’s warm and wet weather has boosted agricultural output spectacularly, after a La Niña-related severe drought last year, saving the economy from a...

MNB rate decision as expected, vice governor hinted at base rate's future path
HUNGARY · In Brief · 21 Nov 2023

Today's rate decision was another 75 bps reduction of the base rate, which is the effective sterilisation rate again, to 11.5%. So far, no surprise at all, analysts and everyone were almost completely sure about this outcome. However, the more interesting part was what vice governor Virág said in...

Q3 government sector data reported: the government looks interested in a strong forint at year end
HUNGARY · In Brief · 20 Nov 2023

The MNB released its preliminary data on Q3 financial accounts by sectors, including the government sector's net borrowing requirement (NBR) and its consolidated gross debt. This shows the NBR at 5.9% of GDP in January-September and the gross debt ratio at 75% of GDP at end-September. The NBR, ty...

The recession ended in Q3 (well, actually in Q2 already according to revised data)
HUNGARY · In Brief · 14 Nov 2023

KSH reported Q3 2023 real GDP growth at +0.9% qoq, -0.3% yoy on seasonally and calendar-adjusted basis. They also revised previous quarters, and so the Q2 data changed to 0% qoq, -2.2% yoy. This means that the economy actually receded in three consecutive quarters through Q1 2023, it stagnated in...

Surprise, surprise: CPI-inflation down to a single-digit level already in October
HUNGARY · In Brief · 10 Nov 2023

The October figures for the headline inflation rate were -0.1% mom, 9.9% yoy, the latter falling from 12.2% yoy in September. This surprised analysts, who had a median expectation of 10.3% yoy, our own forecast figure being 10.2% yoy. Crucially, food prices fell by 0.1% mom, a very much non-seaso...

New KSH data reflects the continuation of a genuinely weak economy in September
HUNGARY · In Brief · 08 Nov 2023

KSH has just released four new reports with monthly data. Three of these, the ones on industry, retail sales and housing construction, are quite negative, not at all pointing to any rapid recovery of domestic supply and demand. The fourth one, on guest turnover at hotels, is actually quite positi...

EU Commission's evaluation of Hungary's judicial reform is delayed further by new questions
HUNGARY · In Brief · 04 Nov 2023

Following a letter with questions sent out on September 26, which the government answered on October 19, the EU Commission sent another letter with new questions regarding 'certain elements' of Hungary's judicial reforms on November 1, a Commission spokesman told the Hungarian press the other day...

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