Maintaining annual GDP growth of around 4% and stable financial foundations, reducing state debt, keeping the general government deficit low, reducing unemployment and achieving full employment remainof key importance, Varga said.

State debt as a percentage of GDP should be brought down to or below the 60% Maastricht threshold by 2020, he added.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in a radio interview on Friday that Varga would continue to oversee the new government’s economic policy. The Hungarian Banking Association projects GDP growth of 4.5% this year, said chairman Mihály Patai, noting that the forecast is above the government’s 4.3% official projection.

He put the banking sector’s combined after-tax profit this year, and in the long term, at around 300 billion forints, down from a bumper 600 billion in 2017.

MTI Photo: Kovács Attila