The Swedish market

A highly developed industrial nation with a focus on modern high-tech manufacturing. That is Sweden. Major sectors include the automotive, cleantech, information and communication technology (ICT), telecom, life science, materials technology and mining industries. Other highly advanced sectors of interest are construction vehicles and forest machines.

Sweden is one of only a few European countries to possess the entire value chain in automotive manufacturing – from suppliers of small components to OEM companies and the vehicle manufacturers Scania, Volvo Cars, Volvo Trucks and Volvo Buses.

The various segments of the automotive industry have a great need for suppliers. Here, as in the rest of the Swedish industrial sector, many companies place a high value on being close to their suppliers. In 2012, 84 percent of Sweden's total imports came from the rest of Europe (SEK 926 billion). The import of engineering products represented just under half of that value, SEK 444 billion.

Swedish companies are known to be easy to work with. The nation's business climate is modern and open, and Swedish companies generally have a high level of expertise, efficient work routines and extensive experience of international cooperation.

Thanks to good collaboration between academic research and industry, Sweden is one of the world's most innovative countries. Ingenious Swedish products that have had a huge global impact include the ball bearing, the zipper, dynamite, the adjustable spanner, the pacemaker and Bluetooth.