Cuidado con Hungría

[El_Presi]

News Headlines

Hungary Rules Out Austerity to IMF/EU, Markets Fall
Published: Monday, 19 Jul 2010 | 5:24 AM ET

By: Reuters with CNBC.com


Hungary's government insisted on a new financial sector tax this year and ruled out further austerity measures at talks with international lenders that were suspended at the weekend, the economy minister said on Monday.

The forint plunged about 2.7 percent in early trading on Monday to 289.70 versus the euro after a review of Hungary's funding agreement signed in Oct. 2008 fell through on Saturday when lenders said the new center-right government needed to take tougher measures to rein in the budget deficit.

Government bond yields jumped 20-25 basis points after the open in illiquid trade.

Talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the EU ended prematurely on Saturday without concluding the country's program review.

This means Hungary will not have access to remaining funds of about 5.5 billion euros ($7.1 billion) in its 20 billion euro financing deal until the review is completed.

Even though the country is not under immediate financing pressure, it has been using the IMF/EU loan as a safety net this year so the lack of agreement risks damaging investor confidence.

Economy Minister Gyorgy Matolcsy told public television m1 on Monday that the IMF and EU have voiced concerns over a 200 billion forint tax planned by the government to contain the budget deficit and a bill which would cut the central bank governor's salary.

"Hungary has experienced a program of austerity over the past five years, we inherited this from the previous governments and we would like to do away with the unfortunate consequences of these steps," Matolcsy said.

"We have told our partners that further austerity packages were out of the question."

The IMF said in a statement on Saturday that Hungary will need to take additional measures to meet its deficit targets this year and in 2011, set out in its current financing deal and in line with the country's obligations with the European Union.

In a separate statement, the European Commission said the reducing Hungary's deficit by next year "will require tough decisions, notably on spending."

Hungary's new government has pledged to meet this year's budget deficit target of 3.8 percent of GDP, which Matolcsy reaffirmed on television on Monday, but he said this should be done primarily with the help of the planned tax on banks.

"We will impose the bank tax, we know this is a significant extra burden but we also know that with this we can achieve the 3.8 percent deficit," he said. "It is either bank tax or austerity, these are the two ways of thought."

Matolcsy told CNBC in an interview he hoped there will be an accord later in the year. (Click for full interview)

"They will come back in September… and we will keep talking and negotiation," Matolcsy said.

 

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7 Oct, 2010
Ofrecen compensación a damnificados en Hungría | Radio Netherlands Worldwide

Los propietarios, que son de los más ricos de Hungría, ofrecieron 360 euros de compensación a cada familia afectada. El total de :: 110 mil euros :: es para ayuda de urgencia, según comunicaron las autoridades locales.

La rotura de un embalse dejó escapar más de un millón de metros cúbicos de lodo tóxico.

Los restos de la fábrica de aluminio arrasaron varias aldeas y la avalancha tóxica causó la fin de cuatro personas. Otros dos habitantes de la zona húngara afectada han sido dados por desaparecidos.

October 08, 2010, 15:00 By Erik D'Amato
The murky business behind Hungary's red sludge crisis: Realdeal.hu

It wasn't until yesterday that anyone in the local or international media - unsurprisingly, it was the independent-minded portal Index.hu - published a serious and detailed look at the history, ownership and character of the company in question. Meanwhile, the lack of reliable information about the company has led to lots of speculation.

According to Index's piece - which is titled approximately "Who are behind the company causing the mud disaster?" - the aluminum industry was one of the most vibrant economic sectors in communist-era Hungary, which naturally made such firms attractive to the company managers and other well-connected insiders who rushed in to "spontaneously" privatize the country's industrial assets after the collapse of communism. And because the industry has remained lucrative, some of those who ended up with these assets are today among Hungary's richest individuals.

From 1963 until the system change, the whole industry was in the hands of a mammoth corporation called Magyar Alumíniumipari Tröszt, which by the 1980s was - despite potentially strong fundamentals - sliding into decline.
After the return to power of the left in the mid-1990s, the government of then-premier Gyula Horn decided that the company would not be privatized (unlike many other industrial assets) but stabilized in such a way as not to put pressure on the state budget, which was then under severe pressure. As part of the stabilization plan, the management was allowed to sell off certain units of the company, including Köfém (light metal factory), which was bought by Alcoa, the leading US-based aluminum manufacturer.

In 1996, the Magyar Alumínium Részvénytársaság (Hungarian Aluminum Company; Mal) was formed, apparently with the aim of picking up some of these other assets. Its initial top management team included Béla Petrusz (CEO), Lajos Tolnay (president), and Árpád Bakonyi (assistant director). The company was transformed in 2000, and is today called Mal Magyar Alumínium Termelő és Kereskedelmi Zrt, but the key owners and decision-makers remain these same three men. (Árpád Bakonyi's son Zoltán Bakonyi is now Mal's managing director (cégvezető), while one Martin Rümmelein - apparently an Austrian - is listed as the CEO.)

According to business daily Napi Gazdaság, Tolnay's 40% stake has helped make him the 21st richest Hungarian, with a fortune of Ft 23 billion (€84 million), while Bakonyi and Petrusz were tied in 28th place, both having amassed Ft 16.5 billion. As for how these men acquired their fortunes, good fortune - and political connections - both seemed to have played a role.

When the state-owned Magyar Alumíniumipari Tröszt and the company it was transformed into - Hungalu Magyar Alumíniumipari Rt - were eventually privatized, Tolnay was able to jump in thanks in part to an earlier windfall he had enjoyed buying (with a loan) and then selling a glass factory in Orosháza. For his part, Árpád Bakonyi - who owns 30% of Mal Zrt. - went from being an assistant department head at the ministry of industry to the presidency of Hungalu Rt. Until this month, he also led Balatonfűzfő's Nitrokémia, once Hungary's largest chemical industry company. Third owner Petrusz is an engineer by training who became a top manager of two key companies in the sector in the 1990s, the Inota metallurgy plant and Magyar Alumínium Kft.

Socialist privatizers, or conservative capitalists?
British Council rules again, psoeppeporros.
While the history of Mal and its owners is murky, even more obscure is the issue of their political alignments and connections. On the surface, the story of Mal would seem to be a classic example of "red capitalism," in which former communist apparatchiks (and their offspring) become business titans while retaining deep ties to their old networks on the political left.

Business weekly Figyelő earlier wrote that Tolnay is regarded as a "Socialist privatizer" (szociprivatizátor) by the right, and there is little doubt that he has deep ties to some of the country's top Socialists.
Mosonmagyaróvár's Motim, in which former Socialist Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány is involved, was one of the owners of Bakonyi Bauxitbánya Kft in 1996-97, while Mal and Tolnay also had shared interest with Gyurcsány in Bauxit Bányavagyonkezelő Kft and Első Magyar Timföldipari Kft. Meanwhile, while answering questions from the press earlier this week, Zoltán Bakonyi confirmed that a company belonging to Gyurcsány was a supplier of the plant that caused the disaster.

But Tolnay has friends on the right as well. ::
Between 1998 and 2001 - during the previous administration of current PM Viktor Orbán - he was a member of the board of directors of state-owned Hungexpo. And prior to the Socialists' first return to power in 1994, he was invited by the then-conservative government to become a ministerial state secretary.

It is thus no surprise that Mal's environmental record has been applauded by officials from both parties. During Fidesz's previous spell in office, current environment protection state secretary Zoltán Illés visited the Ajka alumina plant and expressed his appreciation for the "completion of a full-scale environment protection system," while Gábor Fodor - environment minister under the most recent Socialist cabinet - presented Bakonyi with a "For Our Environment" award.

We're all in this together
It is impossible to determine the role any murky political links may have played in the crisis or the current government's response to it. But the relative absence of partisanship in the government's response is striking.

Likewise, Mal's owners and managers seem to be acting like they have friends in high places. Both Tolnay and Bakonyi were quoted after the onset of the disaster downplaying its seriousness - Bakonyi said the sludge wasn't poisonous but that people shouldn't "bathe" in it - and their responsibility for it.

As of mid-week, they were maintaining that they wanted to restart production at the unit, while questions remained over whether the firm's liability insurance was even remotely adequate. Meanwhile, the company's offer of Ft 30 million (just over €100,000) to the impacted settlements seems less like generosity than an insult, especially given the subsequent offer of $1 million in assistance by Hungarian-American financier George Soros.

Finally, as a foreigner I can't help but wonder what the response would have been - from the government, the media and Hungarians in general - had Mal been an international firm.

Hungarian Spectrum: The political implications of the Hungarian environmental disaster

Ferenc Gyurcsány - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre

 

[Serpiente_Plyskeen]

Refloto un clásico del foro, uno de los hilos de "Cuidado con..." de MSNV - que esperemos vuelva algún día (o no, porque el día que lo haga va a ser para traer no muy buenas noticias, precisamente). En fin, a lo que venía:
Hungary Needs IMF Aid, Disputes Conditions, Orban Says - Bloomberg

Hungary Needs IMF Aid, Disputes Conditions, Orban Says
By Zoltan Simon and Andras Gergely - 2012-09-07T14:32:12Z

Hungary needs and will obtain a credit line from the International Monetary Fund even as the government opposes the conditions currently demanded for the aid, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said.

“Safety is worth very much to us, that’s why we need an IMF deal,” Orban said in an interview with state-run Kossuth radio today. “I think it’s necessary, it will happen, we will strike a deal -- but not on this basis.”

Orban yesterday rejected what he said were the Washington- based lender’s criteria -- including pension cuts and the elimination of a bank tax -- a day after he predicted an accord may come in the autumn. The forint fell the most this year yesterday before paring losses and then rising today.

Hungarian media reports about the purported conditions of the IMF contain “significant inaccuracies,” the MTI state news service reported, citing Iryna Ivaschenko, the Washington-based lender’s representative in Budapest.

Hungary has reversed its approach to the IMF several times since Orban came to power in 2010 on a pledge to end austerity. As his self-described “unorthodox” economic policies helped push the economy into a recession and the country’s credit grade to junk status, Orban reached out to the lender and formally requested aid in November 2011.

Tough Job

“I can’t imagine a tougher job at the IMF right now than trying to negotiate a financial program with the Hungarian authorities -- except perhaps trying to figure out what to do with Greece,” Benoit Anne, a former IMF economist who is now head of emerging-markets strategy at Societe Generale SA in London, said in an e-mail.

The forint dropped as much as 1.7 percent against the euro yesterday, when European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s announcement of plans to buy the government bonds of crisis- stricken euro-area members lifted other currencies in the region, including the Polish zloty, which rose 1.3 percent against the euro. The forint rose 0.7 percent to 284.94 per euro at 4:13 p.m. in Budapest, snapping a two-day drop.
‘Increasingly Difficult’

“This is looking increasingly more difficult to materialize,” Luis Costa, a London-based strategist at Citigroup Inc. (C), said by e-mail. “Orban once again managed to unleash a cycle of underperformance in Hungarian assets.”

The government’s efforts to protect a 300 billion-forint ($1.3 billion) payroll tax-cut plan for 2013, aimed at jump- starting the economy in the face of IMF and European Union criticism, is at the heart of the dispute over the loan conditions, Orban said today. The Cabinet also opposes demands to cut pensions and take away family benefits, he said.

The government maintains it has enough resources in the budget to fund the jobs plan, while the international lenders say the measures threaten efforts to reduce the budget deficit, Orban said.

“At this cost we don’t want a deal,” Orban said.

The ECB’s euro-area bond-purchase plan may also show that new tools are available for authorities outside the common currency area, Orban said, without elaborating.

‘Do Everything’

Hungary’s government “needs to do everything” to reach an aid agreement, Antal Rogan, the parliamentary leader of Orban’s Fidesz party, said today after a three-day party meeting in Sarvar, western Hungary.

The Cabinet should take into account IMF and EU policy proposals and should be open to modify the 2013 budget, which legislators will continue to discuss next week in Parliament, Rogan said in comments broadcast on HirTV.

The ruling party backs “targeted” spending cuts, such as for the reduction of state bureaucracy, while rejecting the trimming of pensions or scrapping plans for payroll tax cuts, Rogan said.

The forint rose 9.7 percent against the euro this year, the third-most in the world after the Chilean and Colombian pesos as investors speculated that an IMF agreement was within reach. The rally may have emboldened Orban to turn away from the lender, while forint losses last November, in January and in June prompted the government to work toward a compromise.

‘Freedom Fight’

Negotiations with the IMF during a review of a previous loan and a possible extension broke down months after Orban came to power in 2010. Orban then said Hungary was better off without the lender as it needed policy space to conduct an “economic freedom fight.”

The country can get by without additional foreign-currency funding until about March or April next year, said Gyula Toth, who helps manage 220 million euros ($278 million) at Ithuba Capital in Vienna.

The forint plunged 15 percent, the most in the world, in the second half of last year as policies including the nationalization of private pension funds and the decision to force banks to swallow losses on foreign-currency loans damaged investor confidence, cut investments and helped push the economy into a recession.

Hungary’s industrial output plunged in July as car production slowed, confirming a trend that drove the economy into a deeper recession than previously estimated.
Industry, GDP

Industrial output dropped a workday-adjusted 2.2 percent in July from a year earlier and fell 1.2 percent from June, the statistics office in Budapest said today. The median estimate of 10 economists in a Bloomberg survey was for an increase of 0.7 percent. Gross domestic product declined 1.3 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, compared with a 1.2 percent preliminary estimate, the stats office said in a separate release today.

Production declined in the second quarter from the same period last year in every industry except information and communications. Construction output plunged 10.7 percent while agricultural production dropped 10.4 percent. Final consumption dropped 1.8 percent in the second quarter.

Orban asked for aid in November as the country’s credit grade was cut to junk at Standard & Poor’s, Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service, and debt auctions failed, helping push the forint to a record low against the euro. The government earlier said it may reach a loan agreement by the end of October.

Hungary’s request for a loan of about 15 billion euros was delayed multiple times because of Orban’s resistance to adhere to legal and economic conditions set by the lender and the EU.

‘Slow Further’

A month after seeking assistance, Orban said Hungary can do without IMF aid, recommitting to negotiations two weeks later with the forint at a record low. Negotiations formally started in July amowing an eight-month delay after the government compromised on a central-bank law that the European Central Bank said undermined monetary-policy independence.

“The turn suggests that negotiations may slow further, albeit we do not expect a break-up in the talks, given that keeping alive market hopes about a future deal is in the interest of the government to ensure” local-currency funding, Eszter Gargyan, a Budapest-based economist at Citigroup Inc., said in an e-mailed note yesterday. “The political turn may be negative to Hungarian assets, which we expect to underperform in the coming weeks.”

Facebook Message

The Washington-based lender asked Hungary to scrap a bank tax in exchange for the loan, which wouldn’t serve the nation’s interests, Orban said in a video message from a retreat of his ruling party in Sarvar, near the Austrian border, posted on his page at the social media website Facebook Inc. (FB) Iryna Ivaschenko the IMF’s representative in Hungary, wasn’t available for comment yesterday.

“The meeting of the parliamentary group decided, and I myself share their opinion, that at this cost we don’t need it,” Orban said. He said he would “seek an alternative negotiating proposal,” without elaborating.

Orban won an unprecedented two-thirds parliamentary majority in the 2010 elections. Even as his support has slipped, his ruling party, Fidesz, has maintained a lead over the opposition more than halfway through the premier’s four-year term.

Fidesz had 17 percent support among eligible voters, compared with 14 percent for the Socialist Party, its nearest rival, state news service MTI reported Aug. 23, citing the polling company Ipsos. The survey of 1,500 adults was carried out between Aug. 12 and Aug. 19 and has a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points, MTI said.

Hungary should move away from “ad hoc” taxes to plug budget holes and should create a more “business friendly” environment to boost growth and make budget financing sustainable, the IMF said in a July 26 statement after holding what it called a week of “constructive” talks in Budapest.

 

[Serpiente_Plyskeen]

Hungary Cuts Rate Again as Decision Polarizes Rate Body - Bloomberg

Hungary Cuts Rate Again as Slump Trumps Inflation Concern
By Zoltan Simon - 2012-09-25T12 :21 :35Z

Hungary’s central bank cut its main interest rate for a second month amid a deepening economic slump, shunning concern about the European Union’s fastest inflation and stirring divisions among policy makers.

The Magyar Nemzeti Bank reduced the two-week deposit rate to 6.5 percent, still the EU’s highest, from 6.75 percent, matching the forecast of 17 economists in a Bloomberg survey. Twelve forecast no change. MNB President Andras Simor will comment on the decision at 3 p.m., when the Monetary Policy Council will also publish a statement on how the bank’s new quarterly inflation and economic forecasts may impact policy.

The central bank last month lowered the main rate for the first time since April 2010 as the four non-executive members of the Monetary Policy Council, appointed by Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s allies in parliament, outvoted Simor and his two deputies. With the economy mired in its second recession since 2009, Hungary is in talks to obtain a loan from the International Monetary Fund.

“With the IMF ‘engaged,’ they probably have the edge over the hawks, including Governor Simor,” Timothy Ash, head of emerging-market research at Standard Bank Group Ltd. in London, said in an e-mail after the vote, referring to the council’s non-executive members.

Underscoring divisions on the council, Simor on Sept. 13 called the cut “pointless” with inflation at double the bank’s 3 percent target. The move cast doubt on the bank’s commitment to tackle price growth and did little to boost an economy held back by subdued lending and investments, he said.
Best Performer

The forint has been the world’s best-performing currency this year as investors bet the government will obtain an IMF backstop. The currency rose 11.2 percent against the euro even after dropping 2 percent from its level before the Aug. 28 rate cut. The forint traded at 283.2 per euro at 2:04 p.m. in Budapest, down 0.2 percent from yesterday. It plunged 15 percent, the most in the world, in the second half of last year.

Hungary’s cost to insure debt for five years with credit default swaps fell to 386 basis points today from 423 basis points before the August rate cut and compared with 630 basis points on June 5. The yield on the government bond maturing in 2022 dropped 23 basis points to 7.23 percent in the period.

Investors are pricing in further rate cuts this year. Forward-rate agreements used to bet on three-month interest rates in three months dropped to 6.22 percent before the rate decision, the lowest in a year. The contracts traded 69 basis points below the three-month Budapest Interbank Offered Rate, indicating a year-end rate of as low as 6 percent.
Regional Peers

As demand for exports wanes in the 17-nation euro region amid the sovereign-debt crisis, the Czech central bank on Sept. 27 may cut its main rate to 0.25 percent from 0.5 percent, already a record low. The Romanian central bank may keep its main rate unchanged at 5.25 percent the same day, the median estimate of economists in Bloomberg surveys show.

Hungary’s rate cut may clash with the central bank’s new forecasts in its quarterly inflation report, to be published at 3 p.m. in Budapest, which will probably boost estimates for price growth.

The inflation rate may fall to the target in 2014 instead of 2013 as estimated in the bank’s June report, Simor said July 24. The August rate rose to 6 percent, the highest since Jan. 2010, led by food and fuel prices.
Deeper Slump

Hungary’s economy shrank 1.3 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, after contracting 0.7 percent in the three months through March. Industrial production fell 2.2 percent in July from a year earlier as the economy plunged into a deeper recession than previously forecast.

The Cabinet’s measures over the past two years, including a special tax on lenders and nationalization of private-pension funds, damaged investor confidence, contributed to a lowering of the country’s credit rating and a cut in investments.

Hungary requested aid in November as its debt was downgraded to junk. Negotiations for a loan of about 15 billion euros ($19.4 billion) were delayed multiple times because of Orban’s resistance to adhere to legal and economic conditions set by the IMF and the EU.

Hungary is expecting to conclude negotiations by November, chief aid negotiator Mihaly Varga said in an interview published in the Magyar Nemzet newspaper Sept. 22.

Orban rejected IMF aid after coming to power in 2010 only to ask for help after debt auctions failed and the forint plunged to a record. Financing pressures have eased since the European Central Bank on Sept. 6 pledged to buy the bonds of troubled euro nations to help resolve the region’s debt crisis.

 

[Serpiente_Plyskeen]

Hungary Has Room to Cut Interest Rates, Policy Makers Say - Bloomberg

Hungary Has Room to Cut Interest Rates, Policy Makers Say
By Edith Balazs and Andras Gergely - 2012-11-06T10 :06 :31Z

Hungary’s central bank has room to lower the European Union’s highest benchmark rate as the country’s risk assessment improves and the inflation target remains within reach on the policy horizon, central bankers Andrea Bartfai-Mager, Ferenc Gerhardt and Gyorgy Kocziszky said.

Interest-rate reductions must be cautious and gradual as policy makers seek to move along with market sentiment and avoid forcing anything, Bartfai-Mager said in an interview in Budapest yesterday. Cuts shouldn’t exceed a quarter-point at a time, Gerhardt said in the same interview, which included three of the four non-executive rate setters who have driven policy easing since August. The country’s “equilibrium interest rate” is 4.5 percent to 5 percent, Gerhardt said.

“Favorable developments in risk premiums and the exchange rate are persistent based on currently available information” and provide maneuvering room for monetary policy, Bartfai-Mager said. Accelerating inflation is primarily fueled by first-round effects, which central banks typically overlook, she said.

The Magyar Nemzeti Bank on Oct. 30 reduced the two-week deposit rate for a third month by a quarter-point to 6.25 percent as concern about a recession outweighed the EU’s fastest inflation and uncertainty about obtaining international aid. Policy makers had a “narrow majority” for the cut over a proposal for no change, MNB President Andras Simor said.

Inflation, the fastest in the EU, accelerated to 6.6 percent in September, the quickest since July 2008, as fuel prices rose 2.8 percent and food costs increased 0.6 percent.
Forint, CDS

The forint was little changed at 282.62 per euro as of 11:01 a.m. in Budapest. It has gained 11.5 percent against the euro this year, the best performance in the world, as investors bet Hungary will obtain an International Monetary Fund loan.

The cost of insuring Hungarian debt against default for five years using credit-default swaps was 283 basis points, compared with a 2 1/2 year low of 235 on Oct. 17, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Yields on the benchmark bonds maturing in 2017 rose 2 basis points, or 0.02 percentage point, to 6.34 percent, compared with a 2 1/2 year low of 6.23 percent on Oct. 18.

“Until now, there has been no indication at all from the market that the Monetary Council cannot get away with continuing this strategy thanks to continued bond market inflows,” Peter Attard Montalto, a London-based analyst at Nomura International Plc said in an e-mail yesterday.

Economic Outlook

Hungary is in its second recession in four years as the euro crisis curbs demand for the country’s exports while government measures to contain the budget deficit crimp domestic lending. The Cabinet last month cut its projection to a contraction of 1.2 percent this year from 0.1 percent growth and predicts an expansion of 0.9 percent in 2013, compared with a previous estimate of 1.6 percent.

Corporate lending probably won’t recover in the next two years, exacerbating the recession as banks’ profit outlook is “distressed” by deteriorating loan quality and taxes, the central bank said in a report yesterday.

The central bank will consider further interest rate cuts if data in the “coming months confirm that the improvement in financial-market sentiment persists” and the medium-term outlook for inflation remains consistent with the 3 percent target, the Monetary Council said Oct. 30.

“The economy is being hit with repeated cost shocks and we constantly have to re-examine” the impact, Bartfai-Mager said. “These gradual small steps provide an opportunity to decide whether to proceed when we can and to pause when that moment comes -- not to finish the cycle, but to pause and see how trends are developing.”

‘Equilibrium’ Rate

An “equilibrium” interest rate would support economic growth and control inflation, Gerhardt said, adding that it would be “extremely brave” to forecast anything in advance.

The European Central Bank last month left its main interest rates unchanged at a record-low 0.75 percent. The Czech central bank cut its main interest rate to a record-low 0.05 percent on Nov. 1 while the Polish central bank, which surprised the market with a rate increase in May, on Nov. 7 will cut its benchmark to 4.5 percent from 4.75 percent, according to 34 of 35 economists in a Bloomberg survey.

Hungary’s central bank pressed ahead with the third quarter-point cut since August as the four non-executive members outvoted Simor and his two deputies on two occasions.

Professional Disputes

It’s “too big a leap” to divide the Monetary Council into inflation and growth-oriented factions, Bartfai-Mager said, adding that it’s as an “oversimplification and needless” to presume there is a political divide, because the disputes are professional.

Disputes that occur in the council are professional and concern inflation scenarios, Kocziszky said.

Talks on international aid remain deadlocked one year after the government turned to the IMF and the EU because of a disagreement over budget measures. The IMF isn’t currently planning to resume its mission to Hungary, Gerry Rice, a spokesman for the lender, said Nov. 1.

The government is still seeking a financial safety net from the IMF, Peter Szijjarto, a state secretary in the prime minister’s office, said Oct. 4, adding that the Cabinet won’t give up the “fundamental points” of its economic policies.

“For the past 12 months we have recommended and supported the striking of an IMF agreement and we haven’t changed that despite the favorable risk assessment in the world,” Bartfai- Mager said. “In my personal decisions I presume that there will be a deal between Hungary and the IMF/EU.”

 

[Garrafón]

Que gran forero MNSV, se echan en falta foreros así.