By Krisztina Than

BUDAPEST, Sept 10 (Reuters) -Hungary's forint slipped after lower-than-expected inflation data for August rekindled market expectations that the central bank could resume policy easing at its meeting later this month.

The Hungarian and Czech central banks have been the most active among central European peers in easing policy since last year but are beginning to slow or possibly pause their steady rate cuts.

Before deciding to keep rates flat in August, Hungary's central bank had delivered 15 consecutive cuts totalling 1,125 basis points. The main rate stands at 6.75%.

Data on Tuesday kept the option of further cuts open - along with pressure from the government to ease policy more - as it showed year-on-year inflation eased to 3.4% in August from 4.1% in July, coming in below a Reuters poll forecast of 3.6%.

It was the lowest rate since February 2021. But core inflation still came in at 4.6%.

An FX dealer in Budapest said the forint's weakness was mostly due to domestic factors, but a strong dollar did not help either.

"The forint is weaker due to comments from policymakers in the past days on the change expected at the helm of the central bank, plus the August CPI data indicates that the central bank may cut interest rates further, which does not help either," the dealer said.

"This is a multi-factor story, but I would say it is predominantly domestic factors that are weighing on the forint."

Economy Minister Marton Nagy told Inforadio late on Monday that the Hungarian bank had "won the fight with inflation", saying too restrictive a policy would hurt the economy.

The forint EURHUF=, whose weakness in recent months has been a constraint on the central bank, eased 0.1% to 397.40 to the euro by 0730 GMT on Tuesday before regaining some ground, while other currencies in Central Europe firmed slightly.

Czech data showed on Tuesday that inflation stagnated at 2.2% year-on-year last month despite market and central bank expectations of a drop. But analysts said the data would not sour policymakers on more rate cuts.

"We believe the central bank board has space to continue its cycle of rate cuts given the favourable inflation development and still unflattering performance in the economy," Raiffeisen said, forecasting a 25-bp cut at the September meeting and subsequent meetings this year.

The crown EURCZK= slightly backed away from a test of the psychological 25 per euro level after the data, trading weaker on the day.

Elsewhere, the Polish zloty EURPLN= and Romanian leu EURRON= were both little changed.

Reporting by Krisztina Than in Budapest and Jason Hovet in Prague; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne

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