HUNGARY
Analyst
Istvan Racz
Former Director, Central BankDatabanks
Recent Country Insights
July inflation data was moderately disappointing
HUNGARY · In Brief · 08 Aug 2025
The headline rate was reported at 0.4% mom, 4.3% yoy, the latter down from 4.6% in June, core inflation fell to 0.4% mom, 4% yoy, down from 4.4% yoy in the previous month, and non-fuel inflation was 0.4% mom, 4.9% yoy, the latter falling only marginally, from 5% yoy previously: This was somewhat ...
Inflation warning: Expect the year-on-year headline rate fall significantly in July
HUNGARY · In Brief · 07 Aug 2025
CPI-inflation data for July is due in the morning tomorrow. In June, the yoy headline rate was 4.6%. Against that, analysts, including us, expect a material reduction to 4.1% yoy (the median value in Portfolio.hu's monthly analyst poll). This reduction would be due essentially to two base effects...
Industry and retail sales figures for June: no trend change seen, business as usual
HUNGARY · In Brief · 06 Aug 2025
Preliminary industrial output and retail sales data (volume growth on sda basis) for June has been reported this morning. A quick look at the fixed-base chart below (volumes, Dec 2010=100, source: KSH) serves with the easy conclusion that there has not been any change in the long-standing trends,...
Q2 GDP data met expectations, exceptionally
HUNGARY · In Brief · 30 Jul 2025
As we reported yesterday, all forecasters expected GDP growth to be slightly positive in Q2, after being similarly negative in Q1. And they have proven to be right. In fact, real GDP growth reached +0.4% qoq, +0.2% yoy, the former after a revised -0.1% qoq in the first quarter. This also means th...
Tariffs, secondary tariffs and Q2 GDP
HUNGARY · In Brief · 29 Jul 2025
The preliminary Q2 GDP data is due tomorrow. Following -0.2% qoq, -0.4% yoy in Q1, Portfolio.hu's analyst poll shows a median forecast of 0.2% qoq, 0% yoy for Q2, with 0.7% average growth for this year and 2.7% growth for 2026. A short while ago, our quarterly forecast update included a slightly ...
Interest rates, assessment all kept unchanged at today's Monetary Council
HUNGARY · In Brief · 22 Jul 2025
The regular monthly rate-setting meeting of the Monetary Council was held this morning. Nobody expected any change, and there was none either, except a reduction of the mandatory reserve ratio for banks, from 10% to 8%, starting from August 1. Why is the latter essentially unimportant? Because th...
Mr. Trump has launched a new threat to Hungary’s economic growth
HUNGARY · Forecast · 21 Jul 2025
External conditions have not made macro forecasting any easier over the past three months. We see two key sources of high volatility and uncertainty that complicate the life of the macro analyst. One of them is geopolitical news, as demonstrated by the most recent violent episode between Israel, ...
The elephant has entered the china shop
HUNGARY · In Brief · 13 Jul 2025
As his self-imposed 90-day deadline for trade talks had been passed, Mr. Trump sent out a number of letters in the past few days. Mme von der Leyen also received one, from which she learnt that the US government intended to impose a 30% general tariff on all of the EUs merchandise exports sold in...
Headline inflation up temporarily on fuel prices, core inflation markedly down in June
HUNGARY · In Brief · 08 Jul 2025
The headline rate of CPI-inflation in June has been reported this morning at 0.1% mom, 4.6% yoy, the latter up from 4.4% yoy in May. This uptick was entirely due to fuel prices, which rose by 0.5% mom. Here the point is that fuel prices actually fell by 3.4% mom in June 2024, and the difference b...