Hungarian Finance Minister Janos Veres told foreign journalists on Tuesday that rumours about discord between the International Monetary Fund and the government, which aided a slide in the forint, were unfounded, Reuters reported.
The forint has weakened to below 280 per euro, partly on the back of the rumours, and party due to the release late last week of weak industrial data.
“The trends of the past few days were artificially created, based on misinformation,” Reuters quoted Veres as saying.
“There is no difference in opinion between the IMF and Hungary on the pace and content of the programme which Hungary undertook to carry out,” he said.
Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Dominique Strauss-Kahn told Tuesday’s Nepszabadsag newspaper that Hungary’s money markets had improved faster than expected since last October, though there are no grounds for complacence.
Strass-Kahn also said that the rumours were unfounded.
“On the contrary. Money market conditions have improved faster than we had expected since the government introduced its economic stimulus programme in October,” he told the paper.
Veres also told the press conference that Hungary’s 2008 budget deficit is expected to be 3.3 percent of gross domestic product, below the original target of 3.4 percent of GDP.
Also Reuters reported Veres as saying that the government would wait for the European Commission’s fresh economic forecasts to be published later this month before deciding whether to modify its 2009 economic assumptions or not.