Via The Swedish Wire: Sweden's economy continued its fast pace of growth in Q4, expanding by 1.0% quarter-on-quarter, HSBC said in a new report. This was slightly above consensus and the Riksbank's expectations, but meant that the annual pace of growth slowed to 2.3%. The slowdown in the annual growth rate was mainly base-effects, owing to the very strong growth rate in Q4 2015. The pace of growth was held back by changes in inventories (taking 0.3ppts from the qoq growth rate), but otherwise strong exports, consumption and investment all fuelled growth, suggesting that Sweden's strong growth picture continued at the end of 2016.