Hungary is seeking to extend the expiry date on a loan with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union (EU), a senior adviser to the country's prime minister said Thursday.
Speaking in a television interview, Gyorgy Szapary said the government wanted to prolong the time frame of the standby loan deal with the IMF and EU by two months till December.
The former deputy governor of the National Bank of Hungary added that his country was not planning to use the portion of the loan still available, but would like to keep the option "if something happens in the world economy that forces Hungary to do it."
Negotiations will start in early July when IMF and EU delegations are due in Hungary, said Szapary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban's chief adviser on financial matters.
He said Hungary would also wanted to negotiate a new agreement for 2011 after the current deal, inked in 2008, expired.
The standby loan, valued at 25.1 billion U.S. dollars, was originally set to expire in March, but its availability was extended to October at the request of the Hungarian government. Almost 4 billion dollars of that loan is still available.