End of recession?
May 17th, 2013The number one left-wing daily believes the Prime Minister is overstating the importance of the positive first quarter GDP data. For the first time in three years, slight growth has been reported on a quarter on quarter basis.
In its front page editorial, Népszabadság mocks Prime Minister Viktor Orbán who said that the first quarter figures mean the end of the recession and therefore prove his economic policy right, at a time when the Euro-zone has reported negative growth data. Mr Orbán must be thinking, Népszabadság writes, that these figures leave the European Union with no option but to apologise to the Hungarian Prime Minister for the unfair treatment he has been subjected to. The left-wing daily thinks however that such optimism would be premature, for the first quarter data do not justify such final conclusions. Apart from a few automobile industry plants, there are no sizable investment projects underway. Agriculture, however, may yet pull the economy out of recession, weather permitting. In that case, the Prime Minister may be right in saying that “this is the year when we harvest what we’ve sown.” Népszabadság concludes, nonetheless, that “he will not reap much reward.”