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ECONOMY

Nuder: Sweden heading for higher growth

Sweden's economy will grow by more than 3.5 percent this year, higher than previously forecast, Swedish Finance Minister Pär Nuder said on Monday.

Published: 30 January 2006 17:04 CET

“The finance ministry misjudged the Swedish economy’s growth in the budget proposal last autumn. We expected growth to be three percent this year, but the way it looks now growth will be more than 3.5 percent”, Nuder wrote in an opinion piece published in Dagens Nyheter on Monday.

When the Social Democratic government presented this year’s budget last September, it revised down its growth forecast for 2005 to 2.4 percent from a previously expected 3.2 percent, but increased its forecast for 2006 and 2007 to 3.1 percent.

In an upbeat assessment of the state of Sweden’s economy, Nuder also said that the Scandinavian country had improved public finances, high employment and a good level of competitiveness by international standards.

“Sweden has healthy public finances. The budget deficit that 10 years ago meant that every third krona in the budget was a borrowed krona has been reversed to a budget surplus,” he wrote.

“Employment figures are high. Salary increases are working well. Sweden’s competitive ability is considered good by international institutions. The social mobility (in Sweden) has proved better than in countries like the US and Great Britain,” he insisted.

According to the latest employment statistics, 64,000 more people were employed in the Scandinavian country last December than a year earlier, and more than 100,000 jobs are expected to be created over the next two years.

Unemployment rose to 5.4 percent in December from 5.0 percent in the same month a year earlier.

“At the same time, economic statistics reveal that Sweden, despite its flaws, remains one of the most (socially) equal countries in the world,” Nuder boasted.

AFP

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ECONOMY

How is Denmark’s economy handling inflation and rate rises?

Denmark's economy is now expected to avoid a recession in the coming years, with fewer people losing their jobs than expected, despite high levels of inflation and rising interest rates, The Danish Economic Council has said in a new report.

Published: 30 May 2023 15:46 CEST
How is Denmark's economy handling inflation and rate rises?

The council, led by four university economics professors commonly referred to as “the wise men” or vismænd in Denmark, gave a much rosier picture of Denmark’s economy in its spring report, published on Tuesday, than it did in its autumn report last year. 

“We, like many others, are surprised by how employment continues to rise despite inflation and higher interest rates,” the chair or ‘chief wise man’,  Carl-Johan Dalgaard, said in a press release.

“A significant drop in energy prices and a very positive development in exports mean that things have gone better than feared, and as it looks now, the slowdown will therefore be more subdued than we estimated in the autumn.”

In the English summary of its report, the council noted that in the autumn, market expectations were that energy prices would remain at a high level, with “a real concern for energy supply shortages in the winter of 2022/23”.

That the slowdown has been more subdued, it continued was largely due to a significant drop in energy prices compared to the levels seen in late summer 2022, and compared to the market expectations for 2023.  

The council now expects Denmark’s GDP growth to slow to 1 percent in 2023 rather than for the economy to shrink by 0.2 percent, as it predicted in the autumn. 

In 2024, it expects the growth rate to remain the same as in 2003, with another year of 1 percent GDP growth. In its autumn report it expected weaker growth of 0.6 percent in 2024.

What is the outlook for employment? 

In the autumn, the expert group estimated that employment in Denmark would decrease by 100,000 people towards the end of the 2023, with employment in 2024  about 1 percent below the estimated structural level. 

Now, instead, it expects employment will fall by just 50,000 people by 2025.

What does the expert group’s outlook mean for interest rates and government spending? 

Denmark’s finance minister Nikolai Wammen came in for some gentle criticism, with the experts judging that “the 2023 Finance Act, which was adopted in May, should have been tighter”.  The current government’s fiscal policy, it concludes “has not contributed to countering domestic inflationary pressures”. 

The experts expect inflation to stay above 2 percent in 2023 and 2024 and not to fall below 2 percent until 2025. 

If the government decides to follow the council’s advice, the budget in 2024 will have to be at least as tight, if not tighter than that of 2023. 

“Fiscal policy in 2024 should not contribute to increasing demand pressure, rather the opposite,” they write. 

The council also questioned the evidence justifying abolishing the Great Prayer Day holiday, which Denmark’s government has claimed will permanently increase the labour supply by 8,500 full time workers. 

“The council assumes that the abolition of Great Prayer Day will have a short-term positive effect on the labour supply, while there is no evidence of a long-term effect.” 

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