To main content

National accounts, second quarter 2020

GDP indicator: Sharp contraction in second quarter 2020

Statistical news from Statistics Sweden 2020-08-05 9.30

Sweden’s GDP declined by 8.6 percent in the second quarter of 2020, seasonally adjusted and compared with the first quarter. This according to the preliminary compilation of the quarterly national accounts. Calendar adjusted and compared with the second quarter of 2019, GDP decreased by 8.2 percent.

What is GDP?

Gross domestic product, GDP, is defined as the value of all goods and services produced in the country. GDP is used as a measure of economic growth and is published quarterly.

Seasonally adjusted and compared to the preceding quarter the decrease is in large parts driven by falling exports and household consumption expenditure. The decrease in GDP is the largest single quarter drop in the directly comparable time series starting 1980. Only the overall GDP growth is published in the flash estimate and any information on the development of individual components should be interpreted with caution.

GDP, seasonally adjusted volume change in percent. Dotted line shows flash estimate
National accounts, second quarter 2020

To arrive at a final reconciled GDP estimate the two calculations from the production and expenditure approaches are balanced. As in the full quarterly national accounts this is done by taking the average of the two. Before balancing actual GDP growth from the expenditure approach was -9.0, with the corresponding figure for the production approach at -6.6 percent. Both these are growth rates compared to the corresponding quarter the previous year. Averaging the two give the final actual GDP growth of -7.8 percent.

Additional information

The GDP indicator is an early compilation of the quarterly national accounts based on limited and preliminary statistics. For more information on the indicator, see Compilation of the Swedish GDP indicator.

Statistical Database

More information is available in the Statistical Database.

Next publishing will be

Complete quarterly national accounts for the second quarter of 2020 will be published on 2020-08-28 at 9.30.

The next GDP indicator will be published on 2020-11-05 at 9.30.

Feel free to use the facts from this statistical news but remember to state Source: Statistics Sweden.

Statistical agency and producer

Statistics Sweden, National Accounts

Address
Solna strandväg 86
171 54 Solna
E-mail
nrinfo@scb.se

Enquiries

Mattias Kain Wyatt

Telephone
+46 10-479 43 56
E-mail
mattias.kain.wyatt@scb.se

Neda Shahbazi

Telephone
+46 10 479 40 09
E-mail
Neda.Shahbazi@scb.se