BUDAPEST, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- Hungary's annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth was 4.8 percent, according to official data published here on Thursday.
According to seasonally and calendar adjusted data, the economy grew by 4.9 percent in the second and third quarters of 2018.
In the fourth quarter of 2018, the economy grew by 5 percent year-on-year, according to a preliminary estimate released by the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH).
Compared to the previous quarter, GDP grew by 1.1 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, adjusted for calendar and seasonal effects, according to KSH.
Market-based services were the main contributors to growth, KSH said.
"Last year, the Hungarian economy grew by 4.8 percent, a figure unseen for 15 years," Hungary's Minister of Finance Mihaly Varga commented at a press conference.
Varga added, "While the world economy and the economy of the EU are facing a slowing trend, the objective of the Hungarian government is to keep up the momentum."
Varga noted that growth in the last quarter of 2018 was 5 percent, a rate three times higher than the EU average.
He explained that growth was not financed by foreign loans. Instead, it was built on a "framework of macroeconomic equilibrium, where the tax rate is constantly decreasing."
KSH will publish further details on the 2018 GDP figure on March 1.
