The Hungarian currency extended its early European session's downtrend against the US dollar at the beginning of Monday's North American session and reached a 1-week low of 187.44 around 8:05 am ET. The forint reached this level after Hungary's central bank decided to leave its benchmark base rate unchanged at 6 percent for the third straight month, despite a rise in inflation. The decision came in line with economists' expectations.

Annual inflation had quickened to 4.5 percent in March from 4.1 percent in February. At the same time, food inflation accelerated for the third month to 8.6 percent.

The central bank resumed the rate hike in November after holding it steady for six meetings. Despite exhibiting a brief correction last week, the forint has been trading higher since the central bank raised the key rate by 25 basis points in January.

The forint appreciated by more than 16.5 percent against the dollar since January, when the nation's Central Bank hiked rate to 6 percent but shed almost 4 percent in the past week on renewed eurozone debt concerns.

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