Hungary has seen a “massive” underlying fiscal improvement over the past few years and its fiscal position is now among the strongest in the world, a major London-based investment banking group said on Friday.
In its monthly global emerging markets report released in London, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch (BoA-ML) said the “draconian” procyclical fiscal tightening that is estimated to be worth around 10 percent of GDP in the 2006 to 2010 period has been one of the largest fiscal tightening episodes ever in EEMEA history.
The report’s section discussing Hungary – titled “Hungary – World’s fiscal leader” – says that considering cyclical dynamics, “our projected headline fiscal deficits of 3.8-3.9 percent/GDP in 2009-2010 translate into a structural fiscal surplus of around 0.5-1 percent/GDP in 2010″.
Hungary’s CPI inflation is likely to “collapse toward 1.0-1.5 percent” year-on-year by end-2010, well below the National Bank of Hungary’s inflation target of 3 percent, the report says.
given their recent history, there’s got to be some irony in
BofA/Merrill bestowing a ‘world fiscal leader award’, no?
could it be that BoA are underwriting HU debt and don’t want to be left holding the bag?
None of this makes me feel any better about Hungarian finances. While I support the measures that have been taken, there is sooooooo much more that needs to be done. Hungary won’t be a leader in anything positive for a very long time. You can’t go from last to first place overnight – well, unless you ARE Hungarian and you slip some money to someone…
This is joke right?
All I can say is that the guys in Bank of America-
Merrill Lynch must be the biggest bunch of economic
dunces yet to pass comment on Hungary.
No wonder we suffered a global economic crisis last
year with this bunch of knobs writing reports with
bogus credibility.
Even over on politics.hu there are a bunch of “outsiders” dominating that forum with their rubbish. Now we have further evidence that a clutch of number nerds (from another continent)
have manufactured statistics “on request” that tend to hide the truth that Hungary is in deep trouble.
Just beneath the surface there is a rumbling that is beginning to gather momentum.
It stems from the fact that most Hungarians are not able to opay their ever-increasing bills because of pathetically low wages.
A sense of despair hangs in the air like a shroud on a spent existence.