In the latest Economic Outlook, the OECD predicts economic growth of 4.4 percent for this year in Hungary, Minister of Finance Mihály Varga said. Commenting on the report after a ministerial-level meeting at the organization’s headquarters in Paris, the Minister said the OECD had revised the former estimates of November 2017 for both this year and next by 0.8 percentage points each.

Among the 37 OECD member states examined in the report, Hungary’s growth rate is expected to be the fourth highest, he stressed. Similarly to the predictions of the Convergence Programme published at the end of April, which prognosticated growth of 4.3 percent, the OECD also sees consumption growth driven by rapidly rising wages, buoyant investment activity as well as rising exports fuelled by favourable external demand and newly created production capacities as the main factors behind the economic boom.

The OECD study confirms that the growth of the Hungarian economy will remain stable and broadly-based. Significant minimum wage hikes, rapid job growth and sound household confidence are providing a firm base for further consumption growth. High labour demand may result once again in double-digit wage growth in 2018, and may cause Hungary’s unemployment rate, already the fourth lowest within the EU, to continue to decline.

The OECD predicts that economic growth within the Visegrad Four is set to remain dynamic across the study’s time horizon and well exceed the average of the euro-zone, Mihály Varga said.

(Ministry of Finance)