All in all, the new information shows some signs of strength in the recovery in advanced economies, but a rather more subdued development in emerging markets. ...but also in Sweden It was clear that international developments play an important role for the Swedish economy when the preliminary GDP figures for the second quarter were published. GDP fell by 0.2 per cent when calculated as an annual rate compared with the first quarter of this year. The negative growth was largely due to a fall in exports, but household consumption also fell somewhat. The outcome was slightly weaker than we and several other analysts had expected. But as the figures are preliminary, we probably should not draw any major conclusions from them. At the same time, new monthly statistics for the retail trade showed that sales were strong at the end of the second quarter. Indicators for the start of third quarter have given mixed signals. So far, the information is limited to the business tendency survey for July and the purchasing managers’ index for the same month. The economic tendency survey, which includes both households and companies, rose slightly in July and the upturn was on a broad front. Confidence in the household sector is now at its historical average. The purchasing managers’ index for the manufacturing industry was over 50 in July, for the third month in a row, which indicates growth in the manufacturing industry, but the most recent outcome showed a fall compared with the previous month.
In EU Member States, between 2002 and November 2005, 202 cases of the restructuring of companies related to offshoring were publicly announced, which resulted in the transfer of nearly one hundred thousand jobs. Over that period, offshoring stood behind nearly six per cent of all cases of publicly announced restructurings of companies in the EU. So far, the scale of the phenomenon has not been large. However, offshoring as a strategy of increasing competitiveness is becoming more and more common and includes not only the manufacturing of products but also - increasingly - services. Table 2. Offshoring in EU member states Countries to which job transfer took place  Number of jobs liquidated in the EU between 2002 and 2003 due to transfer of jobs  Number of jobs liquidated in the EU between January and November 2005 due to transfer of jobs  China  3361  3077  India  9458  5470  Asian countries  3786  3271  Czech Republic  780  3890  Hungary  1110  772  Poland  120  2676  33151  31942  8  Source: European Restructuring Monitor , own calculations  Numerous analyses show that the process of offshoring is bound to grow and increasingly affect services 9 . For example, between 1980 and 2002 the trade in goods and services grew at 6.9%.