Although economic recovery has already begun, the rebooting of the economy following the state of emergency continues to require major resources from the budget. The government’s intent is to provide all possible assistance to Hungarian enterprises, and to create at least as many jobs as are eliminated by the epidemic.

As a result of the economy protection measures and protection-related expenditure, the deficit of the central subsystem approached 2165 billion forints (EUR 6.156 billion) at the end of July.

The central subsystem of public finances closed the first six months of 2020 with a deficit of 2165 billion forints (EUR 6.16 billion). Within this, the central budget produced a deficit of 1841.4 billion forints (EUR 5.24 billion), separate state funds achieved a surplus or 12.7 billion forints (EUR 36.1 million), and social security funds realised a deficit of 336.3 billion forints (EUR 956.2 million). In the similar period last year, the central subsystem posted a deficit of 352.7 billion forints (EUR 1.00 billion). In July 2020, the central subsystem ended the month with a deficit of 328 billion forints (EUR 932.7 million), compared to a surplus of 37.2 billion forints (EUR 105.8 million) in July 2019.

No EU revenues arrived in the budget in July, and accordingly revenues for the fist six months of 2020 totalled 489.5 billion forints (EUR 1.39 billion), while EU-related expenditure approached 1274.9 billion forints (EUR 3.625 billion) at the end of July 2020. It may be stated that the government is funding the resources required for protecting against the virus, including the over 520 billion forints (EUR 1.478 billion) spent on the procurement of the required equipment, and the resources needed to reboot the economy fully out of the domestic budget.

In addition, outstanding from among domestic expenditure until the end of July 2020 are the resources spent on priority public road projects (140 billion forints/EUR 398 million), and the competitiveness-increasing funding program made necessary as a result of the coronavirus epidemic (132.1 billion forints/EUR 375.5 million). Other important pieces of expenditure include the funding paid out from the budget earmarked for tourism development (81 billion forints/EUR 230.3 million), resources paid out towards the maintenance and functioning of the public road system (68.4 billion forints/EUR 194.5 million), as well as the sums paid out from the Village Road Fund (57 billion forints/EUR 162.1 million), for the refurbishment of the public road network (37.4 billion forints/EUR 106.4 million), and within the framework of the Modern Cities Program (29.1 billion forints/EUR 82.7 million). The budget also spent significant resources on the car purchasing subsidy for large families (27.0 billion forints /EUR 76.8 million). Furthermore, in acknowledgement of their outstanding performance during the state of emergency, a one-time extraordinary bonus was paid out to medical and healthcare workers, for which the budget provided 101.3 billion forints (EUR 288.1 million).

(MTI/Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister)