Hungary’s full-year economic growth to exceed expectations

Hungary’s strong growth performance in the third quarter suggests that full-year growth will be above expectations, London-based emerging markets economists said on Monday.

In its new CEEMEA Economic Outlook report, emerging markets analysts at Morgan Stanley said they had upgraded their GDP estimates again, and now see growth at 4.6 percent this year and 3.8 percent in 2019.

“Our first stab at 2020 sees growth at 3.2 percent”.

This moderation would leave Hungary still as a comfortable outperformer compared with the euro area, and broadly in line with the CEE region overall, they said.

“This may not seem remarkable in light of recent performance. However, seasoned watchers will remember how Hungary had been branded as a serial growth underperformer in the pre- and post-crisis years. Since 2014, this has clearly not been the case.

Much of this catching up owes to a recovery in domestic demand, mostly household consumption”, Morgan Stanley’s analysts said.

Source: MTI