A “control case” chosen by Alberto Fernández: Swedish GDP has already exceeded its pre-endemic level

The Swedish economy has already passed the pre-pandemic level. The GDP of the Scandinavian country grew by 0.9% in the second quarter compared to the first, but accelerating month by month, to the point that in June it increased by 2.5% and, as stated David Oxley, from Capital Economics, quoted by Reuters, is already 0.6% above the level it had at the start of the pandemic. In addition, the Ministry of Finance has revised its projections upwards and estimates that 2021 will end with growth of 4.7%.

Last year, Sweden was one of the countries that restricted traffic the least in the context of the coronavirus pandemic: it preferred to appeal to civic responsibility and was heavily criticized, especially at the beginning, for its health outcomes, with rates of infection and death from covid much higher than those of neighbors like Denmark and Norway, largely due to an initial strong wave of deaths in nursing homes and groups immigrants.

Sweden has also been criticized for Alberto Fernandez. On May 8 last year, when he announced one of the many extensions to the quarantine and that deaths from the virus in Argentina have not reached 300, after showing a few slides and responding to criticism from the ‘former Minister Macrista Alfonso Prat Gay, That this measure “destroyed” the economy, the president explicitly pointed the finger at the Swedish approach to the pandemic. “The truth is what I see is that Sweden, with 10 million inhabitants, has 3,175 deaths from the virus (,,,) If we follow Sweden’s example, we would have 13 thousand deaths “said the president, dazed.

Stockholm responds

“Sweden is an example of terror in Argentina”, headlined a Swedish media about the remarks of Fernández and the social democratic government of the Prime Minister. Stefan Löfve, former forestry worker and metal welder, he was obliged to answer. “It is difficult to make direct comparisons between the containment measures that different countries have adopted,” said the head of the official Stockholm epidemiological strategy, Anders Tegnell, stressing that their aim was also to “save lives and protect public health” and that “it will be about time to know which models work best”.

A few days later, however, the Argentine president again criticized the Swedish strategy at a virtual meeting of the “Puebla Group”, comparing Sweden’s health results with those of its neighbor Norway and also pointing the finger at l ‘economy. “The problem is not with those of us who want an open economy or not. Because it seems that those who are less inclined to take care of life do not have good economic results either. This shows that the economic structures are weak, ”he said, pointing explicitly to Sweden. It has happened that the Swedish economy, despite its more flexible circulation measures, has suffered the effects of a strong international integration: the country exports about 160,000 million dollars per year, and world trade has collapsed.

What the data says

Nevertheless, the fall in Argentina’s GDP in 2020 (9.9%) was more than three and a half times greater than the contraction in Swedish GDP (2.8%). Sweden has already surpassed the level of pre-pandemic GDP, while Argentina’s GDP will be at the end of 2021, even if the latest forecasts by government officials like the minister come true. Matias Kulfas, a “rebound” of 7% – still almost 4% below the level of 2019, a strongly recessionary year. Indeed, according to the latest data published by the IMF and the World Bank, in 2020, Argentina lost four places (from 26 to 30) in the international ranking of countries classified according to the size of their GDP, being exceeded by the ‘Austria, United States Emirates, Ireland and Israel. According to the measure of the two multilateral entities, Argentina’s GDP in dollars fell to its lowest level since 2009,

Regarding the health effects, As of Sunday, August 1, Sweden recorded 14,617 deaths due to covid, against 105,721 in Argentina and a per capita death rate nearly 40% lower than that of our country. Although Tegnell himself, head of Swedish health strategy, admitted to reacting late to the situation, the truth is that the Scandinavian nation has carried out nearly three times as many tests per capita as Argentina, to isolate people. infected and limit the spread of the virus.

The Swedish economic recovery is progressing conditioned by developments in the world economy, trade, transport and logistics. But with the acceleration of vaccination processes in its territory and in Europe, the latest results have exceeded expectations.: GDP in the second quarter was 10% higher than in the second quarter of 2020, the worst time of the pandemic, and by April of this year, exports had grown by 22.3% per year. “The indicators point to robust growth and for the next few quarters we expect them to exceed our forecast of 4.5% in 2021,” the economist said. Torbjorn Isaksson, also cited by Reuters.

In turn, according to the report of the latest revision of “Article 4” that the IMF made last March of the Swedish economy, Inflation this year would be 1.5%, less than half of the price increase in Argentina in each of the past 7 months and less than a third of the inflation of last March.

Even today, it is difficult to compare the strategies and results of countries with so different economic conditions and health and education structures. It is also true that Sweden has had worse health outcomes than its Scandinavian neighbors. The Swedish Social Democratic government was right when it stressed 15 months ago that it was too early to know “which health strategies work best”. The same goes, it seems, with economic strategies.

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