Denmark announces corporate tax rate cut

Copenhagen is to trim Denmark’s corporate tax rate in order to attract new business amid an ongoing recession. Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt officially announced the new scheme – which will see the country’s corporate levy reduced to 22 per cent – in a press conference. She said that the initiative would help to provide the Danish economy with fresh growth whilst boosting employment.

Sofie Carsten Nielsen, a Social Liberal party spokeswoman told Bloomberg, “We’ve been challenged by losing 170,000 jobs in recent years. We’re launching this to create jobs and growth. For years we’ve only discussed how to fund welfare spending, while now we’ve set out to create prosperity.”

The news comes after the Scandinavian country saw a four-year low for its trade surplus last December; experts cited the strength of the euro, the currency to which Copenhagen ties the Danish krona. Likewise, official estimates show that the Denmark’s GDP shrank by 0.4 per cent in 2012 – a figure that falls in line with the Eurozone average.