Hungary’s Debt Servicing Costs Surge Past Italy’s to Lead EU
- Hungary’s debt burden doubled in January-September last year
- Nation is selling benchmark dollar debt to meet financing need
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Hungary’s debt servicing payments doubled through the third quarter of last year, putting the nation on track to surge past Italy for the highest level in the European Union in 2023.
Interest payments ballooned to 2.5 trillion forint ($7.1 billion) in the January-September period, twice as much as in the same period in 2022, the Budapest-based statistics office said on Wednesday. Last month, the central bank estimated that debt servicing costs increased to 4.3% of the country’s economic output for the full year in 2023 and may only marginally drop to 4.2% this year, the worst in the EU.