* Foreigners, local savings to ensure demand for bonds-AKK
* Demand from private pension funds seen dropping next year
(Adds more detail)
BUDAPEST, Oct 19 (Reuters) - Hungary can safely finance its debt and deficit in 2011 despite planning to cut the revenues of private pension funds, which have been key domestic buyers of government debt, a top debt agency official said on Tuesday.
The government announced a plan last week to channel new savings in private sector funds worth around 420 billion forints ($2.11 billion) in the next 14 months into the state pension system, which pension funds dubbed as "covert nationalisation".
Debt agency AKK's deputy CEO, Andras Laszlo Borbely, said increased demand from foreign investors and an expected rise in household savings could counterbalance the measure's impact.
"If they (private pension funds) do not buy, others can step into their place, and we can mainly think of foreign investors," he told Reuters.
A planned cut in personal income taxes worth an estimated 300 billion forints next year could also create additional demand for government debt, Borbely added.
"Part of that (tax cuts) will become savings and directly or indirectly that could also appear in the government debt market as demand," he said.
The Economy Ministry said a month ago in a preliminary financing plan for 2011 that the government planned to finance its budget deficit from forint debt markets next year to reduce reliance on foreign currency financing. [ID:nLDE68D24G]
That plan included net forint-denominated government bond and Treasury bill issues worth 677 billion forints, assuming that the budget deficit will be 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) next year.
Borbely said demand from foreign investors has increased in the past months and by the end of October they are expected to increase their share in this year's net Hungarian debt issuance to 60 percent from about 40 percent in September.
"If this interest remains next year, financing (from forint-denominated issuance) can cause no problem," he said.
Hungarian private pension funds have kept slightly more than half of their assets in Hungarian government debt.
Fixed income traders have said that the expected drop in demand from private pension funds may put upwards pressure on Hungarian forint debt yields.
Borbely said the 2011 budget will unveil whether the government plans to assume debt from state-owned companies.
Heavily indebted state firms include railway firm MAV or Budapest transport firm BKV.
If part of the currently targeted below 3 percent deficit stems from such debt assumptions, the government's financing need next year can be lower than now expected -- as debts assumed by the state must be financed only in the year when they expire, he said.
The government is expected to discuss the draft 2011 budget later this month.
(Reporting by Sandor Peto; Editing by Ron Askew)