This reduced the margins for growth in wages, income and private consumption. It also hampered the decrease in the ratio of public debt to GDP, which – after rising by almost 30 percentage points between 2007 and 2013, to 132 per cent – stabilized at around 135 per cent in the period up to 2019.
Even then, conferences, such as this one, are valuable for policy makers to reflect on prospective opportunities and vulnerabilities and to deliberate on responsive growth strategies.