The picture of the Swedish economy is looking brighter, the statistics office said Friday as it presented its sum-up of the economy.

• Sweden’s unemployment expected to drop
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The upward turn in the economy has occurred on a broad scale. Both exports and household consumption showed considerable growth rates during the first quarter and inventories increased sharply.

The growth rate for household consumption was the fastest in 10 years.

"A large part of the increase can be assigned to the large purchases of cars. At the same time real household disposable income grew at a rather moderate pace. The high consumption spending has partly been financed by reduced household savings", the report, The Swedish Economy – Statistical Perspective number 2/2010, said.

The weak investment growth also came to an end.

Another positive sign is the favourable state of the public finances, compared to most other European countries.

The Scandinavian country was hard-hit by the global economic crisis but its economy quickly bounced back. The country's GDP increased by 3 percent in the first quarter compared to the first quarter of 2009; considerably stronger than expected.

However, the upturn has occurred from a very low level, the report pointed out. Between the fourth quarter of 2007, when GDP reached its peak level, and the first quarter of 2009 when GDP reached the bottom, the economy fell by almost 8 percent. Slightly more than one third of the fall has now been recovered.

Sweden's gloomy employment situation is expected to improve over this and next year as the country's economy recovers, the Swedish Public Employment Service said Wednesday.