Hungary’s state budget received some EUR 304bn of EU funding in the month of November 2015, while tax revenues exceeded last year’s level by HUF 665bn.

Thanks to that, the accumulated deficit of the central sub sector of the state budget totalled HUF 970.7 at the end of November 2015.

In the initial eleven months of 2015, the central government budget’s deficit of HUF 1038.5bn and two surpluses – HUF 45.8bn at the Social Security Funds and HUF 22.0bn at Extrabudgetary State Funds – contributed to the final balance.

Although at the end of last November the deficit of the central sub sector of the state budget was HUF 713.7, the mismatch between the two figures stems from the different schedule of the payments of EU funds: the amount of resources hitherto disbursed from the national budget to help fund EU projects exceeded last year’s level by more than HUF 500bn, thus securing the implementation of these projects and preventing the loss of EU funding.

The central sub sector of the state budget closed the month of November with a deficit of HUF 154.5bn, whereas last year the sector posted a surplus of HUF 95.9bn. The discrepancy in this case was also due to the different timing of transfers: outgoing funding totalled some HUF 494bn, which amount is HUF 280bn higher than in the month of November 2014.

Tax revenues increased by some HUF 665bn year-on-year. This is attributable mainly to the better performance of the Hungarian economy and the success of Government measures aimed at improving economic transparency, such as on-line cash registers and the Electronic Road Transportation Control System or EKÁER. The stability of the state budget also confirms that Hungarian reforms have been working. 

Taking into account the annual schedule of revenues and expenditures, the ESA budget deficit target of 2.4 percent of GDP at the end of the year remains to be a realistic goal, or it may even be lower than expected.

(Ministry for National Economy)