Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban attends the opening session of the new Hungarian Parliament in Budapest, Hungary May 2, 2022. REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo

BUDAPEST, May 13 (Reuters) – Hungary’s Prime Minister on Friday handed former central banker Marton Nagy and Finance Minister Mihaly Varga responsibility for tackling the economic challenges caused by soaring inflation, the Ukraine crisis and the explosion of the deficit.

Viktor Orban, who was re-elected for a fourth consecutive term in April’s elections, appointed Nagy to the new post of economic development minister and said Varga would remain as finance minister, the agency reported. MTI official press.

The duo will face the challenges of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, annual inflation of 9.5% and a budget deficit that has widened to 2,636 billion forints (7.12 billion dollars) from January to the end of April.

The most important task ahead is “to find responses to the European economic crisis caused by the war (in Ukraine) that allow Hungary to preserve its achievements of recent years”, says a related bill published on the site. Parliament’s Internet.

Hungary has been the most vocal critic of the European Union’s planned embargo on Russian oil, saying such a move would hurt its economy.

Nagy was appointed economic policy adviser to Orban in June 2020 after he abruptly resigned as deputy governor of Hungary’s central bank, where he had been the architect of much of his unconventional policies.

Orban said Peter Szijjarto would remain Hungarian foreign minister.

($1 = 370.3900 forints)

Reporting by Krisztina Than and Anita Komuves; edited by John Stonestreet and Alexander Smith

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