Sweden Economic Confidence Falls To 37-Month Low

(RTTNews) - Sweden's economic confidence weakened in August to the lowest level in just over three years, mainly due to weaker signals from the services sector, survey results published by the National Institute of Economic Research showed on Wednesday.

The economic tendency index dropped to 85.2 in August from 87.5 in the previous month.

Further, this was the lowest score since July 2020, when it was 84.5.

The service sector's confidence decreased to 87.2 from 91.3. Expectations of the next three months' demand for the company's services contributed most to the decline.

Meanwhile, the manufacturing confidence indicator declined slightly to 96.6 from 97.5. Further, this was the weakest score since August 2020.

Data showed that the index measuring confidence in the construction sector strengthened to 97.3 in August from 95.9 a month ago.

The consumer confidence indicator weakened to a 4-month low of 70.4 in August from 72.5 in July. Economists had expected the index to increase to 75.1.

The decline was explained by the fact that households' expectations of both their own economy and Sweden's economy over the next year became more pessimistic, the agency said.