Budapest - Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany on Monday proposed a 3.9-billion-euro (5-billion-dollar) crisis plan to boost Hungary's economy.

The move comes after international lenders pitched in over the last week to help the eastern European nation stave off financial collapse.

Gyurcsany has called the 1-billion-forint plan a stabilization and stimulus package designed to protect jobs and export markets.

"We have largely overcome the financial crisis, but we are looking at an extended economic crisis for which we must prepare," he said Monday, presenting the plan in parliament in Budapest.

The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Union last week offered 20 billion euros in emergency loans to Hungary, eastern Europe's hardest-hit victim of the global financial crisis.

The IMF loan, worth 12.5 billion euros, saved Hungary from possible default and "social crisis," Gyurcsany told the Sunday newspaper Vasarnapi Hirek.

Hungary's slump was exacerbated by consumer spending and business expansion fuelled by loans in foreign currencies. That was coupled with some of the region's slowest economic growth and a budget deficit that has drawn pointed EU criticism.

Hungary's purchasing manager index, which gauges the outlook for manufacturing, fell to a 10-year low in October, the MTI news agency reported Monday.

The index fell to 44.7 from 49.9 in September, MTI said. A number below 50 indicates a contracting manufacturing sector. (dpa)