BUDAPEST: The European Commission has raised its projections for GDP growth in Hungary to 3.7 percent for this year and 3.6 percent for 2018 in a fresh forecast released on Thursday. The projections for 2017 and 2018 were raised from 3.6 percent and 3.5 percent, respectively, in the EC’s spring economic forecast, released in May. The EC publishes such forecasts three times a year. Hungary’s government targets GDP growth of 4.1 percent this year and 4.3 percent in 2018.
The EC said growth this year is supported by private consumption and rebounding investment. Private consumption and household investment, supported by both government-initiated and market-driven wage increases, as well as a strong recovery in bank lending and further fiscal loosening is expected to lift growth in 2018; however, growth is set to slow in 2019 as capacity constraints emerge, it added.
