Economic growth edges up in Q4

GDP growth marks a six-quarter high: Hungary's GDP grew 0.8% in annual terms in Q4, following a 0.7% expansion in the prior quarter. Q4's reading was the strongest since Q2 2024. In seasonally adjusted quarter-on-quarter terms, economic output expanded 0.2% in Q4, following a flat reading in the prior quarter. In 2025 as a whole, the economy grew 0.4%, which was a deterioration from 2024’s 0.6% rise.

Broad-based improvement in Q4: Compared with the previous quarter's data, readings in Q4 improved for private consumption (+2.7% on a year-on-year basis vs +2.3% in Q3), government consumption (+8.4% vs -3.5% in Q3), fixed investment (-1.0% vs -2.1% in Q3), exports of goods and services (+0.5% vs -0.1% in Q3) and imports of goods and services (+5.2% vs +3.8% in Q3).

Panelist insight: ING’s Peter Virovacz and Zoltán Homolya said: “Our latest economic growth forecast for 2026 has been revised downwards again to 1.7%, from 1.9%. This negative revision is partly due to the energy price shock and partly due to the structure of economic performance in the fourth quarter. The so-called carry-over effect accounts for 0.3ppt of this growth. In other words, if GDP were to stagnate in each quarter compared to the previous quarter during 2026, annual GDP growth would be 0.3% this year. Growth dynamics this year are being driven by consumption supported by government measures, a modest pickup in investment, and continued weakness in net exports.”

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