Hungary's central bank sees tax-adjusted core inflation, its preferred measure of underlying price trends, at 16.9% to 19.4% this year, easing to 4.4% to 6.4% by next year, the National Bank of Hungary said in its quarterly inflation report.

The bank said on Thursday that inflation risks and the economic growth outlook were balanced.

The NBH, which left all interest rates unchanged on Tuesday and dashed market bets on rate easing, said Hungary's huge current account deficit, driven by a surge in gas imports, would narrow to 4.4% to 3.2% of economic output this year. (Reporting by Gergely Szakacs and Krisztina Than)