Varga dismisses speculation of forint weakening

Initiatives

Hungary's government plans to lure much-needed investment into the economy by making its currency more stable rather than seeking to boost exports by weakening it, new Economy Minister Mihály Varga told the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.
    “When one leg (of the country) is still trapped in foreign currency debt, there's no way the other leg can run for higher exports. We must decrease our foreign currency exposure and help export growth at the same time. We can do most by stability and predictability for the forint exchange rate to be stable and make the fluctuations disappear,” the paper quoted Varga as saying.
    The forint has been up to 5% weaker from the start of the year. The minister said one option open to the National Bank of Hungary (MNB) would be to buy Hungarian sovereign debt in the secondary bond market, matching a similar program available to the European Central Bank.
    “This doesn't mean without any boundaries or conditions,” Varga added.

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