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The Hungarian economy grew by 4.4 per cent in both the last quarter of 2017 and the first quarter of 2018. A growth rate faster than this was registered only once in the past decade. This is the fourth or fifth highest rate in the CEE region, and Hungary is likely to be at the peak of its current business cycle. The rate of increase in investments financed by EU transfers and in household consumption, boosted by the elections as well, is expected to slow down during the rest of the year. In addition, external demand is expected to deteriorate rather than grow further. However, based on the better than expected figures of the first quarter, GKI raised its GDP forecast for 2018 to 4 per cent from 3.8 per cent and its consumption forecast to 4.5 per cent from 4 per cent. GKI raised its inflation projection to 3 per cent due to the rise in world oil prices and lowered the expected general government deficit to 2.2 per cent of GDP as a result of a shift in the government’s economic policy.

You can download the forecast from here.

The archive of earlier forecasts is available here.

More information.

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