Hungary aims to secure an international safety net of 15-20 billion euros, Mihaly Varga, head of the prime minister’s office, told Saturday’s Magyar Hirlap daily.
Varga said the government hoped to strike a deal in the next couple of months on a credit line which it would only draw on should the European economic crisis worsen.
“It is in the interest of both sides to reach an agreement, and so it should be sketched out within the next two months,” he told the paper. “The safety net could total around 15 to 20 billion euros,” he added.
He said it would help the forint’s exchange rate to stabilise and government bond yields to ease, producing budget savings in the tens of billions of forints
Varga said economic growth was expected to start getting going in the second half of the year, though global economic woes were making it hard to boost the rate of growth.