Hungarian foreign trade indicators – similarly to past months and quarters – showed positive changes in the month of April 2015: the volume of Hungarian exports and imports rose by 8.4 percent and 9.4 percent, respectively, year-on-year. Thus, foreign trade surplus reached almost EUR 500 million in the observed period. The Ministry for National Economy is expecting these favourable foreign trade trends to remain in place for the entire year.

In the initial four months of the year, the value of exports and imports totalled some EUR 30bn and EUR 27bn, respectively, which resulted in a surplus of EUR 3bn. The volume of EU exports and imports was also up by 9 percent and 10 percent, respectively. The export volume to non-EU destinations soared by more than 10 percent.

In the month of April 2015, the export volume of machinery and transport equipment surged by 12 percent; within that, the exports of motor vehicles were some 30 percent higher. The import volume of machinery and transport equipment rose by 11 percent. The volume of exports and imports of manufactured goods was 4 percent and 7 percent higher, respectively. Within that category, the import volume of medicine and pharmaceutical products increased by more than 25 percent, while the volume of exports was more than 10 percent higher. The exports and imports of rubber products – thanks to car industry demand – and furniture and furniture components increased by more than 10 percent each. The volume of exports and imports of food, beverages and tobacco products increased by 6 percent and more than 2 percent, respectively. The export volume of grain crops was more than 150 percent higher.

As a whole, the Ministry is expecting this favourable trend to remain in place for the rest of the year, and thus in 2015 foreign trade will again significantly contribute to Hungarian economic growth.  The optimistic assumptions are confirmed by positive international confidence indices and order book data.

(Ministry for National Economy)