The government’s management of the Danish economy has earned it praise from the powerful rating agencies whose verdicts on the economic credibility of countries can either make them sink or swim.
Thankfully for Denmark, the rating agencies support the fiscal policies of the current government that have helped keep the nation afloat.
“The Danish economy has many structural strengths,” Maria Malas-Mroueh, an analyst from the Fitch rating agency, told Politiken newspaper. “Its versatile, personal income is high and there are robust economic, political and social institutions. A long tradition of sensible economic policies is reflected in a relatively low level of structural unemployment and a stable currency.”
Ivan Morozov from Standard & Poor’s added that Denmark’s prized triple-A rating is a result of the government’s “continued commitment to fiscal discipline and growth orientated macro economic policy".
Torben Andersen, a former chairman of the government’s independent economic council, Det Økonomiske Råd, said that Denmark benefits enormously from the positive view of Denmark held by the ratings agencies.
“We are one of the countries with the most control of the situation,” Andersen told Politiken. “The benefit is that the economic policies are not questioned. This means we can keep low interest rates and are not as subject to mistrust as other countries have been.”
Despite the approval of the credit rating agencies, the Danish economy is still sluggish and only recently pulled itself out of recession when it registered a 0.3 percent growth in the first quarter of 2012.
