Sweden's economy is doing better than expected as GDP unexpectedly grew

Wednesday, 29 May 2013
The Swedish economy grew more that expected as the gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 0.6 percent in the first quarter of this year, compared to the quarter before.
If compared with the corresponding quarter of 2012, the growth rate stood at 1.7 percent, which is significantly above the European average, according to Statistics Sweden.
Sweden-economic-growth
"Compared to the fourth quarter of 2012, GDP increases by 0.6 percent and that's pretty much stronger than what is in our forecast, we had an increase of 0.1 per cent," said Mats Dillén, director of Swedish economic forecasting authority, National Institute for economic research (NIER) to Swedish news agency TT.

According to official data from statistic Sweden, household consumption expenditures increased by 1.5 percent and general government consumption expenditures decreased by 0.1 percent non-adjusted. Changes in inventories contributed 0.7 percentage points to GDP growth. Gross fixed capital formation decreased by 7.2 percent. Exports decreased by 2.9 percent and imports decreased by 4.7 percent. Production of goods and services increased 2.0 percent, working-day adjusted. Production of goods dropped by 0.2 percent and service-producing industries grew by 3.2 percent. Total employment measured as the number of hours worked decreased by 0.9 percent and the number of persons employed increased 0.8 percent.

Not only NIER had thought of weaker growth. Most economists had predicted a much lower economic growth. Other analysts' organisations such as SME Direkt survey showed an expected 0.3 and 1.3 percent respectively.
by Scancomark.com Team

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