Hungary’s new prime minister plans to overhaul tax system

HUNGARY’S new prime minister has said he would cut public wages, overhaul the tax system and ban mortgage lending in foreign currencies as he strove to reassure nervous investors he can contain the budget deficit.

After sweeping an April election with a two-thirds majority, Victor Orban unveiled a programme dramatically departing from that of a previous caretaker Socialist cabinet that cut spending last year after narrowly avoiding economic meltdown in 2008.

The rightist Fidesz party has pledged to cut taxes and create jobs to tackle Hungary’s large debt pile but analysts say that could threaten targets agreed under the country’s €20 billion European Union/International Monetary Fund bailout.