BUDAPEST: Hungary’s cash-flow-based budget, excluding local councils, ran a 213.4 billion forint (EUR 698m) deficit at the end of May, the Economy Ministry said on Wednesday.
Hungary’s GDP grew by an unadjusted 4.2 percent year on year in the first quarter, the Central Statistical Office (KSH) said in a second reading of the data. The shortfall was 18.3 percent of the 1,166.4 billion forint full-year target. The budget position is “very favourable”, with the deficit standing at only 18 percent of the annual plan as against the time-proportionate 42 percent, economy ministry state secretary Péter Banai Benő said. Thanks to the increase in the number of jobholders and the growth in real wages, several revenue items are higher than originally planned, he told public television. Personal income tax revenues were 65 billion forints more than last year despite an increase in available tax allowances. Other employment-related tax revenues and VAT revenues were also up, he said. On spending side, the state spent 29 billion forints more on home creation subsidies than in the same period last year, he added.
