We are now facing a long period with weak growth in both the Danish and international economies.
Danish exports have undergone a very disappointing development in recent months and now demonstrate a significant decline in commodity exports in the third quarter.
Slowdown in international demand
The decline in exports is partly due to a clear slowdown in international demand, but at the same time the decline in Danish exports is much worse than in our neighboring countries. Some of this decline is hopefully temporary.
However, the significant debt problems in a number of countries and an overall distrust in the ability of politicians to handle these issues has led to a significant weakening of international growth prospects. Hence, export forecasts are now considerably lower than expected in May 2011.
Weak growth in years to come
Thus, with exports as the main driver of growth in the Danish economy, it is expected that GDP will decline in the second half of 2011 and that growth will be very weak in the years to come.
As a result, there are no indications that Denmark will reach the same output levels as before the financial crisis within the period covered by this forecast. It will be 2014 or 2015 before we will be able to reach the same level of real GDP as in the first half of 2008.