BUDAPEST: Hungary's Economy Ministry said on Tuesday it firmly denied a report by website Index.hu, which said the government would be considering to use the central bank's foreign currency reserves in violation of relevant EU and Hungarian legislation.
The ministry said the report lacked professional basis. "It is the debt agency AKK which manages state debt: it refinances expiring debt from forint and foreign currency resources," it said in a statement.
"The repayment of forint debt is simply done from funds raised this way, while the repayment of foreign currency debt can be done in various ways: from forint or from the AKK's fx assets. In the latter case, the AKK buys foreign currency from the National Bank (NBH), which results in a drop in FX reserves in the first step," the ministry said.
"The NBH later, within the framework of its own fx reserve management strategy, fills up its foreign currency reserves to the desirable level as necessary," it added. The government is respecting the central bank's independence, the ministry reiterated.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.