HUNGARY RAISES PRICES IN EFFORT TO CURB DEFICIT
  Hungary has announced sharp price
  increases for a range of food and consumer products as part of
  its efforts to curb a soaring budget deficit.
      The official MTI news agency said the government decided
  consumer price subsidies had to be cut to reduce state
  spending. From today the price of meat will rise by an average
  18 pct and that of beer and spirits by 10 pct, MTI said.
      MTI said consumer goods will also become more expensive,
  with the price of refrigerators rising some five pct. It also
  announced a number of measures to ease hardship, including
  higher pensions and family allowances.
      Statistics indicate the budget deficit tripled in 1986 to
  47 billion forints. Central banker Janos Fekete has said the
  Finance Ministry is trying to cut the 1987 shortfall to between
  30 and 35 billion from a planned 43.8 billion.
      A major tax reform, including the introduction of a
  Western-style valued added tax, is planned for January 1988 in
  an effort to cure problems in state spending.
      But diplomats said the latest announcement shows the
  authorities were forced to act quickly to keep this year's
  deficit under control.
      The measures are also aimed at cooling an overheated
  economy, and could help dampen Hungarians' appetite for
  imported Western goods which consume increasingly expensive
  hard currency, the diplomats said.
      The diplomats also said, however, that they did not expect
  the kind of social unrest that followed sharp price rises in
  other East Bloc states, notably Poland.
  

