Unexpectedly large reduction in Hungary’s key interest rate

Before the announcement, most analysts had expected a drop of 50 points.

The interest rate announcement depresses the value of the Hungarian forint on the foreign exchange market. The exchange rate retreats by 0.4 percent to 383:17 forints per euro.

The policy rate in Hungary has been lowered rapidly from levels around 18 percent in May this year.

The interest rate cut now comes after inflation in Hungary was measured at 12.2 percent in September – which is roughly halving the inflation rate since January’s level of 25 percent.

However, inflation in Hungary is still the highest in the entire EU and more than four times higher than the Hungarian inflation target of 3 percent.

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