FACTBOX-Possible nominees for Hungary's cbank council

BUDAPEST, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Hungary's parliament will vote to appoint four new members to the central bank's rate-setting Monetary Council on March 7 after a committee hearing of candidates, a parliament spokeswoman said on Thursday.

The mandates of four external members of the seven-member board expire on March 1 and under new legislation passed earlier this week, a parliamentary committee controlled by the ruling Fidesz party will pick four new people to join the Monetary Council.

Hungarian lawmakers on Monday passed legislation that strips the central bank's governor of the right to nominate two of the new members and leaves nominating and appointing all new rate setters at the discretion of Parliament, where the ruling Fidesz party has a two-thirds majority.

The six-year terms of National Bank of Hungary Governor Andras Simor and his two deputies, Julia Kiraly and Ferenc Karvalits, end in 2013.



POSSIBLE MONETARY COUNCIL REPLACEMENTS

* GYORGY BARCZA, 34, is chief economist at the Hungarian unit of Belgium's KBC Bank. He carefully embraced a strategy prioritising growth but also repeatedly stressed the need for strict fiscal discipline.

* AKOS PETER BOD, 59, is a university professor, a former centre-right politician who was governor of the central bank in 1991-1994. He said in a recent interview that the government's crisis taxes levied for 2010-2012 would spill into prices and said that anchoring inflation expectations was a key issue.

* LASZLO BOGAR, 59, is an economist and former centre-right lawmaker who was state secretary for international economic relations and director of strategic analysis in the 1990s. He has studied globalisation and is an ardent supporter of Fidesz' policies.

* LASZLO CSABA, 56, is a media-savvy economist and university professor. He has urged sustainable cuts in the budget deficit to lay the foundations for quicker economic growth. In a recent interview he said the price stability target should not be changed.

* MAGDOLNA CSATH, 67, is an economist and university professor who has said in a recent essay that one of the main obstacles to Hungary's economic growth was high interest rates which serve the interests of speculators.

* TAMAS MELLAR, 56, is an economist, university professor and director of research at economic think-tank Szazadveg Gazdasagkutato Zrt. He was head of the Central Statistics Office for 1998-2003. He recently criticised the government's pension measures and personal income tax cuts, and has called for structural reforms and modernisation of Hungary's economy.

(Reporting by Budapest bureau/Sandor Peto) Keywords: HUNGARY CBANK/ ([e-mail]; [phone]; Reuters Messaging [e-mail]) COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters.