Hungary’s government rejects main opposition Fidesz’s criticism regarding its alleged distortion of the country’s economic situation, government spokesman Domokos Szollar told MTI on Friday.
Senior Fidesz official Peter Szijjarto earlier said the government was “delusional” when it “continued to paint a rosier picture of the economy than adequate, pretending the situation was improving, against the projections of all international forums.” He cited OECD and Dow Jones projections on faltering economic growth and unemployment figures.
In response, Szollar cited an October report from Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, which stated that Hungary’s economy would accelerate to “a robust growth in two years’ time”. He added that Standard and Poor’s has recently upgraded the outlook on Hungary’s sovereign debt from negative to stable and that JP Morgan in an analysis on Hungary said the country could beat Poland and the Czech Republic to the adoption of the euro, with its achievements in reining in the budget deficit.
On the subject of high unemployment, which Fidesz has blamed on the Socialist government’s inadequate job-creation measures, Szollar said this was a problem globally. He added that the Bajnai government had created 90,000 jobs and spent 67 billion forints (EUR 249m) in subsidies to keep another 70,000.