By Andras Gergely and Zoltan Simon | Updated on Oct 07, 2026 at 09:37 AM
Hungary’s economic growth will probably accelerate next year, with a credible path toward euro adoption set to spur a further rally in bonds, Finance Minister Andras Karman said Wednesday.
Gross domestic product is projected to rise 2.4% in 2027 from an estimated 1.7% in 2026, boosted by the unfreezing of €16.4 billion ($18.4 billion) in European Union funding for Hungary. The new government is focused on increasing productivity, some of whose benefits will probably be felt in the longer run, Karman added.
While Karman didn’t disclose further details from a long-awaited fiscal plan due later this month, he pledged to deliver savings by trimming oversized state contracts that used to be awarded to former Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s allies.
“With a credible reduction in the deficit and euro accession path, we can expect a further decline in yields,” Karman said in a presentation shown at the Portfolio Budapest Economic Forum.
Hungary’s bonds and forint currency rallied this year after Peter Magyar defeated Orban at April’s elections and pledged to meet criteria for euro adoption by 2030.
Read More: Hungary’s Kurali, OTP Bank CEO Back Path to Euro Accession
Investors are awaiting the cabinet’s presentation of its 2027 budget and longer-term fiscal plans later this month showing how it plans to converge toward the single-currency area.
“The government isn’t facing an impossible task,” OTP Bank Chief Executive Officer Peter Csanyi said at the same conference, citing a range of one-off spending items this year.
The budget consolidation must be crafted in a way that doesn’t derail economic growth, Csanyi said, citing the need for structural reforms. He also called for the phaseout of “discriminatory” taxes, such as those burdening the financial industry.
Still, the government has its work cut out to make expansion more broad-based and sustainable. The recent upswing in growth, including industrial output surging the most in years, was almost solely due to production at BMW AG’s Hungarian plant in Debrecen, Csanyi said.