Excluding Magyar Eximbank, the debt was 71.7 percent of GDP, down from 73.9 percent a year earlier.

The NBH recently started publishing separate state debt ratios, with and without the balance sheet of Magyar Eximbank, in line with a decision by Eurostat.

Eurostat has for years maintained that Magyar Eximbank should be reclassified inside the state budget, which would raise state debt.

The net budget financing requirement, which is a good approximation of the budget deficit, was 721 billion forints (EUR 2.3bn) in 2017, equivalent to 1.9 percent of GDP, the NBH data show.

The net financing requirement rose from 1.7 percent of GDP in 2016.