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Danish exports to Britain growing despite Brexit fears

Lucie Rychla
March 30th, 2017


This article is more than 7 years old.

Second half of 2016 saw a 1 billion kroner improvement

Danish economists worry how Brexit will affect Denmark’s exports to the UK (photo: Pixabay)

Despite fears of the opposite, Denmark’s exports to the UK have continued to grow even after the Brexit vote, says Sydbank’s chief economist Jacob Graven.

At the end of 2016, Danish exports to Britain rounded up at 37 billion kroner and cross-border trade actually improved by 1 billion in the second half of the year compared to the first half.

According to Graven, Britain was Denmark’s fourth largest export market in 2016.

“Exports performed better than expected and have not declined as feared,” Allan Sørensen, the chief analyst at Dansk Industri, told DR.

“Large orders for wind turbines, among other things, kept exports high, but all in all, Danish exports performed better than feared.”

READ MORE: What Brexit means for Denmark and for the expats

Fear of losing jobs
Nevertheless, the Danish Chamber of Commerce worries some 53,000 Danes, whose jobs are dependent on exports to Britain, could be negatively affected once the country leaves the EU.

“For us, it is important to ensure that our businesses will continue to have access to the UK market and that they will not be met with unfair competition from British products on the home market,” Geert Laier Christensen, the deputy-director at the Danish Chamber of Commerce, told Kristeligt Dagblad.

The British prime minister, Theresa May, yesterday signed the official letter sent to EU President Donald Tusk that invokes Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union and thus triggers UK’s exit from the EU.

UK’s divorce from the EU will come into effect by the summer of 2019.


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A survey carried out by Megafon for TV2 has found that 71 percent of parents have handed over children to daycare in spite of them being sick.

Moreover, 21 percent of those surveyed admitted to medicating their kids with paracetamol, such as Panodil, before sending them to school.

The FOLA parents’ organisation is shocked by the findings.

“I think it is absolutely crazy. It simply cannot be that a child goes to school sick and plays with lots of other children. Then we are faced with the fact that they will infect the whole institution,” said FOLA chair Signe Nielsen.

Pill pushers
At the Børnehuset daycare institution in Silkeborg a meeting was called where parents were implored not to bring their sick children to school.

At Børnehuset there are fears that parents prefer to pack their kids off with a pill without informing teachers.

“We occasionally have children who that they have had a pill for breakfast,” said headteacher Susanne Bødker. “You might think that it is a Panodil more than a vitamin pill, if it is a child who has just been sick, for example.”

Parents sick and tired
Parents, when confronted, often cite pressure at work as a reason for not being able to stay at home with their children.

Many declare that they simply cannot take another day off, as they are afraid of being fired.

Allan Randrup Thomsen, a professor of virology at KU, has heavily criticised the parents’ actions, describing the current situation as a “vicious circle”.

“It promotes the spread of viruses, and it adds momentum to a cycle where parents are pressured by high levels of sick-leave. If they then choose to send the children to daycare while they are still recovering, they keep the epidemic going in daycares, and this in turn puts a greater burden on the parents.”