Sweden and Denmark enter technical recession

The Swedish economy has entered a technical recession after registering a fall in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in two consecutive quarters, the Central Statistics Office (SCB, for its acronym in Swedish) reported this Tuesday. GDP, which had fallen 0.8% in the second quarter of the year, fell 0.3% in the third quarter compared to the previous one, due to a drop in inventories and household consumption.

Changes in inventories, especially industrial inventories, contributed negatively to GDP with 1.4 percentage points, while household consumption fell 0.6 points.

"The slowdown was broad-based but was partly offset by strong services exports. Household consumption spending was negative for the fifth consecutive quarter," the SCB said in a statement. The fall in GDP compared to the third quarter of 2022 was 1.4%.

The Danish economy emulates its Nordic neighbor and has also entered a technical recession after GDP contracted 0.1% in the third quarter, the second consecutive quarter with falls, reports the National Statistics Office.

GDP fell 0.9% in the second quarter compared to the first, after the corrected data released today, which expanded the decline by 0.6 units.

"The fall was mainly driven by a significant decline in the industry, where especially the pharmaceutical industry has been the main driver of the decline. Maritime transport, on the other hand, had a notable positive effect," stated in a statement.

The pharmaceutical industry, led by Novo Nordisk, has had considerable importance in the Danish economy in the last year, in which it grew by close to 50%.

"In the first three quarters of the year, GDP rose 1.3% compared to the same period of the previous year. Without the contribution of the pharmaceutical industry, GDP would have decreased by 0.5%," notes the National Statistics Office .