Hungary's government will launch a 700 billion forints ($1.94 billion) worth of loan programme for businesses from February to support lending as part of its efforts to avoid recession this year, the Ministry for Economic Development said on Monday.

It said the programme, to be provided via Eximbank, would provide cheap loans for businesses and also allow them to refinance loans that they had taken out under a previous central bank loan scheme that will expire in 2023. ($1 = 361.3800 forints) (Reporting by Krisztina Than)