Although unemployment is still high, large parts of the economy have recovered rapidly.
Above all, it is the industry that is now at full speed again after a dramatic slowdown last year.
Today, Statistics Sweden published new preliminary growth figures which show that GDP has increased by as much as 10.5 per cent in the past year.
If you compare GDP for June with the month before, the increase is 2.5 percent.
- The economy continued to develop positively during the second quarter, in line with the growth we saw during the beginning of the year.
The growth figure compared with the previous year is also the highest we have measured in our time series for Sweden's GDP, which should be seen against the background that the economy a year ago was hit hard by the pandemic, says Melker Loberg economist at Statistics Sweden, according to a press release.
The industry is booming
The National Institute of Economic Research, KI, measures the development of the Swedish economy with a so-called barometer indicator.
This measure of economic activity rose in July from 122.4 (from 119.8 the month before).
Thus, for the third month in a row, the indicator has reached a new highest level.
KI has been measuring since the mid-1990s.
The high level of the indicator is still explained for the most part by the manufacturing industry, which is booming.
- A value of over 100 means stronger growth than normal, explains Fredrik Johansson Tormod, unit manager at KI, and continues:
- This describes the activity in the entire economy, but is driven by industry in many ways. That is a surprisingly high figure compared to where we were a year ago. And yes, that's the highest figure we've ever measured.