Hungary trade surplus reaches EUR 820 m in June

Budapest, August 10 (MTI) – Hungary’s trade surplus came to 819.5 million euros in June, up 361.9 million euros from a year earlier, a first reading of data released by the Central Statistics Office (KSH) on Monday shows.

The surplus was up 313 million euros from a month earlier.

Exports climbed 13.4 percent in one year to 8.044 billion euros in June 2015. Imports rose by 8.9 percent to 7.225 billion euros in the same period.

In the first half of 2015, the trade surplus reached 4.310 billion euros. Exports rose by 7.9 percent to 45.193 billion euros during the period. Imports increased by 5.8 percent to 40.883 billion euros.

About 79 percent of Hungary’s imports came from other European Union countries in June and a similar 79 percent of exports went to EU member states.

ING Bank analyst Andras Balatoni attributed the big June surplus to automotive industry output that has been lifted by new capacity. He added that the effect would pass out of the base period from September, but still projected a full-year surplus between 6.5 billion euros and 7 billion euros.

Takarekbank analyst Gergely Suppan said the surplus could reach as high as 8.5 billion euros by year-end.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters