Budapest  - Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany announced his resignation on Saturday, saying a new government with a new leader was needed to tackle his country's economic meltdown.

Hungary has been particularly hard hit by the global recession and Gyurcsany has seen his personal popularity hit a rock bottom of 18 per cent - the lowest for any Hungarian premier since the fall of communism.

At a congress of his Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) in Budapest, the deeply unpopular premier spoke of the need for a wider social consensus to tackle the crisis.

Budapest - Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany said on Saturday he will step down from office, calling for a new government with a new leader to tackle Hungary's economic crisis.

At a congress of his Hungarian Socialist Party in Budapest, the deeply unpopular premier spoke of the need for a wider social consensus to tackle the crisis.

"I hope I am the only obstacle to this - and if I am, then I will now remove that obstacle," Gyurcsany said.

Budapest  - Hungary's economy is set to shrink by 4 to 5 per cent this year, the head of economic think tank Kopint-Tarki said on Friday.

The economic research institute has issued increasingly grim forecasts over recent months as Hungary's economic gloom has deepened.

In December, the estimate was a contraction of 1.3 per cent, said Kopint-Tarki head Eva Palocz.

Budapest - Clothing giant Levi-Strauss confirmed on Friday that it will close its Hungarian plant by the end of June with the loss of 549 jobs.

The factory in the small southern town of Kiskunhalas has been turning out the company's iconic denim jeans since 1988, when Hungary was still a communist state.

The US clothing company told the local news agency MTI that it had agreed a severance package with its Hungarian workers.

Over 30,000 jobs have been lost in Hungary since the effects of the global financial crisis hit the country hard last October.

Budapest - The Hungarian currency, the forint, firmed up Wednesday morning to within the psychological comfort zone of 300 to the euro, despite gloomy data released by Hungary's official statistics office.

Seasonally adjusted figures showed that the Hungarian economy shrank by 2.5 per cent in the last quarter of 2008 compared to the same period a year earlier. It meant the recession is deeper than originally thought, as a preliminary report had the contraction at 2.1 per cent.

Budapest - The Hungarian forint strengthened on Monday, the morning after the central bank's Monetary Policy Council issued a statement saying it will use all available means to halt the currency's seemingly inexorable decline.

The council stressed that it believes the fall in the value of the forint is the result of a lack of faith among investors and currency traders in the economic soundness of the Central European region as a whole, and not a true reflection of Hungary's economic fundamentals.