Hungary is on track to overshoot the public deficit target for 2004, the central bank president said

Hungary is on track to overshoot the public deficit target for 2004, the central bank president said. The government said earlier the January-August deficit was already more than the amount forecast for the entire year. The finance ministry said the accumulated deficit from January to August amounted to 5.86% of gross domestic product, due to weak revenues. The government has steadfastly maintained it would reduce the public deficit to 4.6% of GDP in 2004. The central bank has already cast doubt over the government's ability to keep its deficit pledge, with the bank's inflation report in August forecasting a deficit of 5.4% of GDP for year-end 2004. "The central bank sees a danger that the public deficit could be even higher by year-end than the 5.4% of GDP that we published in the August inflation report," central bank president Zsigmond Jarai told a hearing of the parliament's budget committee on Wednesday. Hungary's public deficit reached 5.9% of GDP in 2003, which led to the dismissal of former finance minister Csaba Laszlo in January for exceeding the government's target.