The Hungarian Economic is a medium-sized, structurally, politically and institutionally open economy in Central Europe and part of the Europen Union’s open-market. Like most Central and Eastern European economies, the economy of Hungary experienced market liberalisation in the early 1990s as part of the changing from social economy to capitalist economy. Hungary is a member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) since 1995, a member of the World Trade Organisation since 1996, and the European Union since 2004.
In 2006 Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány was reelected because of promising economic „reform without austerity.” However, after the elections in April 2006, the socialist coalition under Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany revealed a package of austerity measures which were designed to reduce the budget deficit to 3% of GDP by 2008.
Because of the austerity program, the economy of Hungary slowed down in 2007. However, due to many large investments, GDP growth improved to 3 percent in the second half of 2008. In foreign investments, Hungary has seen a shift from lower-value textile and food industry to investment in luxury vehicle production, renewable energy systems, high-end tourism, and information technology. As well as farming in the flat regions of Hungary.
Then after the bankrupty of the Lehmann Brothers, the National Bond’s Office (ÁKK – Állampapír Kezelő Központ) was not able to refinance the outdating loans, so on 27th of October, 2008, Hungary reached an agreement with the IMF and EU for a rescue package of US$25 billion, aiming to restore financial stability and investors' confidence.
Because of the uncertainity of the crisis, banks gave less loans which led to a decrease in investment. This led to a fallback in consumption which then increased job losses and decreased consumption even more. Inflation did not rise significantly, but real wages decreased. As a result of this, Hungarian GDP in 2009 fell more than 7%. (our worst year since the collapse of heavy-industry in 1992-93)
The fact that the euro and the Swiss franc is worth a lot more in forints than they did before affected a lot of people. The monthly mortgage bills soared and thousends of families lost their homes. Though the forint has got stronger now, some economists believe that the Hungarian Forint is too strong in the current economic environment. Even the newly elected Viktor Orbán’s plan is to make the Forint weaker to help the export oriented economy to recover. But before that we have to help those people who has their loans in foreign currencies. There are other plans to cut taxes and drastically reduce the complexity of the tax-laws as well as reducing the bureaucracy. Family tax allowance will be introduced too. We need to achieve good results in lowering the number of blackleg workers and invest money to the education of the new generations. A date to join the EMU (European Monetary Union, „= the Euro”) should be decleared soon as it would increase investors confidence, which would result in lower bond rates.
If we maintain efficient monetary and strict fiscal politics and introduce these reforms we’ll have a good chance to catch-up with the more developed countries like the Czech Republic or Slovenia in the next decade.
Kovácsházi György
Gold Forex Trading