STOCKHOLM, April 28 (Xinhua) -- The Swedish central bank (Riksbank) on Tuesday projected that the country's gross domestic product (GDP) will shrink by up to 9.7 percent this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to a press release by Riksbank, it presented two prognoses: productions to fall sharply; and the GDP to contract by 6.9 percent or even worse, by 9.7 percent, before it bounces back in later years.

Riksbank said the projections are depending on "how long the spread of infection continues and on how long the restrictions implemented to slow it down are in place."

Meanwhile, the bank said it would leave its key interest rate, the repo rate, unchanged at zero percent.

Riksbank added that it would take a large number of measures "to facilitate credit supply in the economy and counteract a rise in interest rates to households and companies as uncertainty in the economy increases."

The measures indicated include offering banks loans of up to 500 billion SEK (about 50 billion U.S. dollars) for onward lending to companies, buying securities for up to 300 billion SEK and offering loans to banks in U.S. dollars.

It is difficult to say how deep and prolonged the economic downturn will be, the central bank said. (1 SEK = 0.1 U.S. dollar) Enditem

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