Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

ECONOMY

‘Sweden will be affected by the crisis’: experts

Swedish experts say Sweden won't avoid being affected by the turbulent world economy and on Sunday financial spokesperson for the Social Democrats, Tommy Waidelich, said that he wants to gather the Riksdag’s financial committee to discuss the situation.

Published: 8 August 2011 06:52 CEST
'Sweden will be affected by the crisis': experts

“With things as they are today I think that the committee on finance should be summoned to discuss the situation. I also think that the Riksbank should attend that meeting,” Waidelich told news agency TT on Sunday.

On Friday Waidelich had said that the state of the world economy was so severe that the government should initiate talks with the opposition and that the Riksdag’s Committee on European Union Affairs should be called to attend.

Since then the developments in the United States has led to a harsher tone between the US and China and Waidelich, who is deputy chairperson of the finance committee, said on Sunday that he will now demand an extra committee meeting to discuss recent international developments.

Several Swedish financial experts also said on Sunday that they believe the international financial instability will have consequences for the Swedish economy.

Head economist at Swedish bank Swedbank, Cecilia Hermansson, told TT that Sweden can’t avoid being affected by a world economy sent rocking, despite its own healthy state finances.

“If we enter a sluggish financial development on the world markets it will affect Sweden too. What will most probably happen is that monetary policy will become less severe. The government has announced that some reforms may have to be postponed. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that all types of support for the financial market should be completely ruled out if the economic trend points downwards,” she told TT.

Thomas Pousette, head analyst at Swedish bank SBAB is certain that Sweden can expect an unstable and spasmodic financial autumn.

“These are not problems that will resolve themselves all at once. It will be a question of seeing how policy will be shaped in the affected countries, how these are received and the effects they will have. This is just the beginning of a trend that might be pretty unstable for a longer period of time,” Pousette told TT.

The announcement by the European Central Bank on Sunday that they will purchase eurozone bonds did some to stabilize the Asian markets and stave the massive drop expected after the weekend’s international financial developments.

However, Asian markets still fell early on Monday, despite assurances by the G7 group that they would act to strengthen financial stability.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

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.” 

SHOW COMMENTS