Hungary central bank ends rate-setting press conference

The National Bank of Hungary (MNB) will no longer hold press conferences after the monthly rate-setting meetings of the Monetary Council, MNB Spokesman András Simon told MTI on Monday. The new practice will apply from Tuesday, when the council will hold its first rate-setting meeting since former economy minister György Matolcsy took over the post of governor from András Simor at the beginning of March. The decision of the rate-setters will be announced as before at 2pm local time on Tuesday and the council's written statement on the decision will be released one hour later at 3pm. There will be no change in the publication of the bank's quarterly Inflation Report, Simon said in response to a question from Econews. The next Inflation Report will be published on schedule at 10am on March 28, Thursday, to be followed by an analysts' forum that journalists can also attend as before. It was not immediately clear, however, that the annual inflation and GDP projections of the report will be published as previously at the time of the rate-decision statement, on Tuesday. Besides the press conferences held related to analysts forums, there will also be press briefings after eventual strategic decisions, Simon said. He did not elaborate on such decisions, adding only that the latter press briefings will be attended by the MNB governor, one vice governor and one other monetary council member.