STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Sweden’s economy entered a technical recession in the third quarter as gross domestic product fell 0.1% compared with the previous quarter, preliminary figures from the statistics office showed on Tuesday.
Swedish GDP also declined in the second quarter . An economy is considered to be in recession when the economy has contracted for two consecutive quarters.
Compared to the same quarter a year earlier , gross domestic was down 0.1%.
Analysts had forecast the economy would expand by 0.4% in the July-September quarter from the April-June period and to grow by 0.7% compared to last year .
The preliminary data is likely to be revised when final figures are published .
In September, GDP expanded 0.1% compared to the same month last year, but fell 0.4% compared to August.
Sweden’s gross domestic product decreased in September which together with weak development in July contributed to negative growth for the third quarter as a whole compared with the previous quarter,” Sweden’s statistics office said.
Sweden’s economy has been sluggish for the past year . At its most recent meeting in September, the Riksbank said it expected to cut the policy rate at the two remaining meetings this year – one of which could be a half percentage-point cut – and once or twice more in the first half of 2025.
The Swedish economy remains stagnant,” Swedbank said in a note. The outcome suggests a somewhat higher probability for a bigger move in November, and we stick to our call of a 50 point rate cut at the Riksbank’s policy meeting next week,” it said.
(Reporting by Johan Ahlander, editing by Terje Solsvik and Christina Fincher)
