Hungarian ministry confirms HUF 1,491 bn budget shortfall at end-July

Hungary’s budget deficit, excluding local councils, came to 1,491 billion forints at the end of July, reaching 109.6 percent of the 1,360.7 billion forint full-year target, the Finance Ministry confirmed in a second reading of data released Tuesday.

In July alone, the general government deficit came to 70.4 billion forints, a much lower monthly deficit than previously.

In the first seven months of the year budgetary revenue from VAT and personal income tax was up an annual 258.7 billion forints and 149 billion, respectively, while payroll tax revenue rose by 163.7 billion.

The ministry said

domestically funded programmes and development projects such as spending on home subsidies for families, road and infrastructure investments, the Modern Cities and Healthy Budapest schemes raised expenses.

The ministry noted that pre-financing for EU-funded projects reached 1,309.4 billion forints by the end of July, up by around 20 percent from the same period a year earlier, but transfers from Brussels came to just 162 billion.

Button

The government stands by its full-year deficit target of 2.4 percent of GDP and assumes GDP growth above 4 percent,

the ministry said.

(HUF 100 = EUR 0.3091)

Source: MTI