Economic Country Review
institutions, energy and telecom companies, and retailers. The IMF/EU bailout program lapsed at
the end of the year and was replaced by Post Program Monitoring and Article IV Consultations on
overall economic and fiscal processes. The economy began to recover in 2010 with a big boost
from exports, especially to Germany, and achieved growth of approximately 1.4% in 2011. At the
end of 2011 the government turned to the IMF and the EU to obtain a new loan for foreign
currency debt and bond obligatins in 2012 and beyond. Whether negotiations result in a loan
depend on Hungary meeting EU and IMF requirements for ensuring the independence of
monetary, judicial, and data privacy institutions. The EU also launched an Excessive Deficit
Procedure and requested that the government outline measures to sustainably reduce the budget
deficit to under 3% of GDP. Unemployment remained high, at more than 11% in 2011. Ongoing
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