Hungary to overshoot public deficit target

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.