The Hungarian central bank cut its benchmark interest rate by 0.50 percentage points to 11.0 percent in what was seen as an attempt to weaken the country's currency

The central bank's decision, widely expected by analysts, came after the forint strengthened in recent weeks to less than 250 forint per euro. On Monday, the forint was trading at 247.9 to the euro ahead of the announcement and weakened to 248.7 forint to the euro immediately after the rate cut. The central bank has identified a range of between 250-260 forints per euro as the most appropriate for Hungary to join the eurozone, which the government has vowed to do in 2010. A speculative attack in January 2003 saw the forint appreciating rapidly only to lose nearly 10 percent of its value by year-end. Analysts then blamed erratic monetary policies -- including flip-flops in interest rate policies and an intervention in the curreny's trading band -- coupled with a large public deficit for the loss of investor confidence. The central bank said in a statement Monday domestic factors influencing its rate cut were positive trends in inflation and growth.