The National Bank of Hungary (NBH) will pay HUF 50 billion in dividend to the budget, according to press reports.
National Bank of Hungary governor György Matolcsy in an interview with Magyar Nemzet said the board approved the proposal to pay dividends at the April 27th meeting. The interview will appear in Friday's edition of the daily, but the news was confirmed at its online edition. The National Bank of Hungary has not paid dividend to the budget since 2002. The HUF 50 billion payout means that the state debt to GDP ratio will decline 0.15%.
The NBH said in February that it had posted a record HUF 95 billion in profit last year. The cut in the base rate reduced the central bank's interest expenditure by more than HUF 250 billion in the last three years, the bank said earlier this year. The weaker forint has also helped to boost reserves.
NBH spokesman Balázs Hidvéghi in a radio interview on Thursday morning defended the operations of the National Bank's foundations. In three years, the foundations managed to preserve and even added to the initial founding capital with few billion forints, while supporting more than 700 research and educational programs and fellowships.
