Over the summer, Swedish and Norwegian financial officers have become much more concerned about the business environment, Swedish bank SEB said Wednesday as it released its Financial Officers Survey.

"Concerns regarding demand have increased significantly among financial officers in both Sweden and Norway”, said Ebba Lindahl, Head of Credit Research at SEB and credit analyst Henrik Blymke.

“Far fewer companies now plan to employ more staff domestically during the next six months while profit expectations for 2011 are declining despite generally solid Q2 earnings reports”.

Another sign of decreasing business confidence in Sweden is the fact that the share of officers expecting to raise prices in the next six months declined to 47 percent from 65 percent in May and 71 percent in February.

Asia is regarded as most likely to generate growth going forward.