FX.co ★ Swedish Household Spending Falls Most Since Early 2021

Sweden's household spending logged its worst decline in nearly two years in December amid the rising inflationary pressures, figures from Statistics Sweden showed on Wednesday.

Household spending fell a working day adjusted 1.8 percent year-on-year in December, following a 0.7 percent drop in November. This was the second successive monthly decrease.

Further, the latest annual decline was the steepest since January 2021, when household consumption dipped 3.9 percent.?

The current downturn was largely driven by a 4.7 percent lower consumption of food and beverages.?Meanwhile, transport and retail sales and service of motor vehicles made a positive contribution of 5.0 percent in December.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, household consumption dropped 0.8 percent monthly in December.

The COVID-19 outbreak started to significantly impact household consumption in April 2020, which should be taken into account when comparing annual development statistics, the agency said.