Hungary Monthly Trade Gap

Hungary revised its initial estimate of the July trade gap down yesterday (by 20 million euros) to 145 million euros (or 37149 million HUF) according to the Hungarian statistics office. Exports grew by 5,587.9 million euros or were up 23.1% yr/yr in July as compared with a 17.9% expansion in June.

Imports were up 16.8% or 5,733.3 million euros as compared with a 16.0% increase in June.



The rate of growth in Hungarian exports has been exceeding that of imports for some two years now, so the 12 month trailing trade deficit is coming down steadily. It totalled “only" 1.4 billion euro in July, but this was less than half of the total for the same period last year. Exports to the European Union increased by 17.9% while imports from this source rose 15.7% year on year in the first seven months of 2007.

Source: KSH External trade, Detailed results, January-July 2007

Hungary PMI September 2007

The Hungary manufacturing PMI jumped in September. While manufacturing activity across the euro zone has been dropping steadily to a near two-year low in September, Hungary's seasonally adjusted Purchasing Manager Index (PMI) jumped by 3.6 points to 54.2 points, a five-month high, according to the Hungarian Association of Logistics, Purchasing and Inventory Management (HALPIM) earlier this week.

On the other hand, the Ecostat Top-100 index, a monthly measure of confidence at Hungary's largest hundred companies dropped to a five-month low of 95.8% in September from 103.4% in August. It was however well above its 74.8% level of a year earlier.

The September PMI was slightly up from the 53.4 registered in Sept 2006 and over the 52.3 average for the same month for the previous three years.


The majority of sub-indices gave higher readings than in August, especially the new order volume (up 5.3 pts to 58.2), production output (+4.5 to 54.5) and employment (+3.7 to 53.1) ones.

The index of inventories, however, jumped 7.2 pts to 58.4.

Oh well, good news is always good news, even if we are not really sure what happens next here.

Hungary Q2 2007 Current Account Deficit

According to data from Magyar Nemzeti Bank last week Hungary's current-account deficit widened in the second quarter of 2007, from the previous Q1 as rising interest payments led to a higher income gap.



The shortfall in the second quarter 1.7 billion euros, compared with a restated 1.2 billion euros in the first quarter, the Budapest-based central bank said today. The deficit compares with 1.6 billion euros in the year-ago period.

Hungary has the European Union's highest benchmark interest rate after government measures to reduce the EU's widest budget deficit almost quadrupled the inflation rate in the year to March.


These figures mark a halt in the reduction which had been taking place in the deficit over the last three consecutive quarters. An improving goods trade balance which has been led by rising exports was behind the improvement.



Hungary's CA shortfall was 2.9 billion euros in the first six months of the year, compared with 3.2 billion euros in the same period last year. The income deficit in the second quarter widened to 2.3 billion euros from 1.9 billion euros in the first quarter. The surplus on goods traded was 200 million euros after a 393 million-euro shortfall in the first half of last year.

Hungary's net external debt rose 3.8 billion euros from Q1 in the second quarter, to 37.1 billion euros.