Hungary posts EUR 956 m March trade surplus

Budapest, May 9 (MTI) – Hungary posted a trade surplus of 956 million euros in March, essentially unchanged from the same month a year earlier, the Central Statistical Office said in the first reading of data on Tuesday.

Exports rose by an annual 18.4 percent to 9.431 billion euros while imports were up 21 percent at 8.475 billion.

Fully 80 percent of exports and 74 percent of imports were traded with other European Union member states.

Takarékbank analyst Gergely Suppán said export growth could continue in the coming months, supported by the impressive performance of the industrial sector and gauges of sentiment in Europe that augur a pickup.

Erste Bank chief analyst Gergely Urmossy said the strong trade data likely reflect the improvement in the industrial sector in March. The full-year trade surplus could reach 9.5 billion euros, he added.

Péter Szijjártó, the minister for foreign affairs and trade, told public television after the data release that on the basis of the first quarter figures, after the export records last year and the year before that, the expansion of Hungarian exports has not let up. The data is exceptionally strong and outperformed expectations, he added.

Large-scale export-oriented investments announced in 2015 and 2016 are now reaching full production capacity, and a natural consequence of this is a big rise in the growth of Hungarian exports, the minister said.

Source: MTI/KSH