UPDATE - FinMin: Growth to exceed 5 pc in 2022 (adds details)

Hungary's economy was one of the fastest to recover from the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, with its output surpassing the pre-pandemic level in mid-2021, and its growth expected at 6.8 percent this year and above 5 percent in 2022, Finance Minister Mihaly Varga told parliament's economic committee on Monday. Unlike during the global economic crisis of 2008, Hungary needed no assistance from the International Monetary Fund, Varga said. This achievement was all the more remarkable as the global recession in 2020-2021 came to 3.6 percent as against 1.7 percent in 2008-2009, he added.