Last week the delegation had 20 to 30 meetings in a variety of government agencies and other institutions to gather information on segments of the Hungarian economy, state secretary at the Economy Ministry Gyula Pleschinger told MTI on Friday. Members of the delegation have consulted senior officials of the National Development Ministry, the National Bank of Hungary, the National Development Agency, the Ministry of Human Resources, the Budapest City Council as well as commercial banks. The talks, which started on July 17, Tuesday, will continue until Wednesday this week.
Officials said an agreement on a €15 billion loan could be expected by around October.
IMF external relations director Gerry Rice said at the start of talks that the IMF would negotiate with Hungary on a Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) but acknowledged that the country would treat the credit as precautionary.
The first round of negotiations with the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday was calm and matter-of-fact, Mihály Varga, the government’s chief negotiator, said on Thursday.
Speaking about the course of the talks till now, Varga said the government had presented their macroeconomic projections for 2013 and 2014, while the representatives of the IMF, EU and European Central Bank had expressed their own views of the situation. Varga noted that Parliament had already adopted the 2013 budget act, which envisages 1.6% GDP growth.
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