Fiscal Council head: No election budget in 2018

Budapest, February 28 (MTI) – It is not expected that the government will loosen the purse strings in the run-up to the 2018 general election, the head of the Fiscal Council said in an interview to Tuesday’s edition of Magyar Hírlap.

Árpád Kovács noted that the budget had started 2017 with a significant surplus of more than 120 billion forints (EUR 390m) in January thanks to higher tax receipts, a whitening economy and an improvement in the employment rate.

Whereas Hungarians are not going to be catching up with Austrians on wages yet, they will nevertheless enjoy higher wages, and value-added with also increase, he said.

Further, the government’s fiscal policies are more predictable, he said, adding that it has hardly been necessary to make budget amendments in the past few years.

Kovács reckoned that between 2024 and 2026 the public debt will reach the European Union’s desired level of 60 percent of GDP.

Read the original article in Hungarian HERE.

Source: MTI