Hungarian government successful in crisis management?

Hungary’s economy was successfully relaunched after the coronavirus pandemic, a government official said in Parliament on Wednesday, presenting the report on the final accounts of the 2021 budget.

Péter Benő Banai, a state secretary of the finance ministry, said the pandemic overrode previous economic prospects worldwide in 2020 and 2021. At the same time, Hungary’s budgetary and financial results in previous years provided a secure foundation to counter the fallout, preparing the ground for a successful relaunch and the record growth of last year, Banai said. Economic growth and the stable labour market were preserved this year, despite the war and the negative effects of sanctions, he said.

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State auditor: government successfully relaunched economy

Government financial policymaking contributed to the successful relaunch of Hungary’s economy in 2021, head of the State Audit Office (ASZ) told lawmakers on Wednesday during a debate on the final accounts of that year. Laszlo Windisch noted that the country’s economy grew by 7.1 percent last year, putting it in eighth place in the European Union.

He said the revenue and spending sides of the final accounts were well-founded and their “structure and contents” were compatible with the legal requirements. The public debt shrank in 2021 in accordance with the rule that the debt must decrease in successive years. Meanwhile, in line with a relaxation of European Union rules regarding deficits, the budget shortfall exceeded 3 percent, he noted, adding that this had been justified both in the case of the country and the bloc as a whole.

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Source: MTI