Denmark’s economy expanded rapidly in the last three months of 2023 as Novo Nordisk and its pharmaceutical peers ramped up production.
Gross domestic product increased by 2% compared to the previous three months, Statistics Denmark announced in preliminary figures for the fourth quarter.
The pharmaceutical industry was the driving force behind the expansion, but growth was also supported by increased consumer spending.
According to the data, the growth rate for the full year of 2023 was 1.8%, but without the domestic pharmaceutical industry, the growth rate would have fallen to -0.1%.
Last year, the statistics agency began publishing GDP statistics excluding the pharmaceutical industry over concerns that Novo was distorting the figures and hiding weaknesses in other sectors of the economy.
The economic recovery comes as Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo is investing heavily to meet massive demand for its blockbuster weight loss drug Wigovy and diabetes drug Ozempic.
The increase in sales has pushed the company, now Europe’s most valuable company, to record levels of profits, boosting the country’s overall economy.
Tor Strummer, chief economist at the Danish Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the figures signaled a “great final spurt” for the Danish economy in 2023.
He expects the industry to “continue to contribute solid growth” in 2024 as pharmaceutical companies continue to expand production capacity.
Statistics Denmark also revised its GDP data for the third quarter, saying the economy was growing rather than contracting as previously suggested, meaning Denmark was not in recession after all. .
“This means that the technological recession was just an illusion,” Helge J. Pedersen, Nordea’s chief economist, said in a note.
This figure not only “fundamentally changes the profile of Danish economic development” but also shows that “economic development as measured by GDP has become very difficult to predict,” he said. Ta.