Largest Swedish Companies to Participate in SPIEF 2019
А meeting between Anton Kobyakov, Adviser to the President of the Russian Federation, and Peter Ericson, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Sweden to Russia, has taken place in Moscow.
Participation of the Swedish delegation in the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, which will be held on 6–8 June 2019, was discussed in the course of the meeting. Mr. Ambassador proposed to organize a Russian-Swedish panel discussion within the SPIEF 2019 business programme with the participation of representatives of the largest Swedish companies represented all over the globe, such as AstraZeneca, Scania, IKEA, Volvo Group, Ericsson and others. The proposed topic for discussion is the development of economic ties between Russia and Sweden through implementation of joint projects by Swedish investors and their Russian partners, in order to ensure a technological breakthrough.
“We highly appreciate the Swedish Embassy in Russia and the Swedish Trade and Investment Council (Business Sweden) striving to promote dialogue and expand business contacts between our countries. We are eager to promote this dialogue in cooperation with other public organizations. Trade and economic partnership, as well as humanitarian cooperation have traditionally been an important basis for Russian-Swedish relations,” Anton Kobyakov said.
Peter Ericson noted that every year Sweden strives to increase the level of participation in the Forum: “For two years, Sweden has been taking an active part in the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, which is becoming a good tradition. In June 2017, the first ever Russia-Sweden bilateral round table was held at SPIEF, with the participation of five major Swedish investors. In 2018, Sweden was represented by a top-level delegation, which included executives of 10 global Swedish companies, as well as the State Secretary to the Minister for EU. Affairs and Trade, Mr. Oscar Stenström. This year, the level of participation is expected to be even higher.”
In addition, Sweden confirmed its participation in the International Arctic Forum, which will be held in St. Petersburg on 9–10 April 2019, with the representatives of governments and scientific community taking part. The Swedish delegation also would like to hold a session on environmental issues as part of the Forum’s business programme.
During the meeting, the matters related to the road show of Russian regions in Sweden in the September and October of 2019 were discussed as well. The purpose of the road show is to establish contacts between representatives of regional executive authorities and businesses from the participating Russian regions with representatives of the Swedish business community, government agencies, development institutions and expert community.
Peter Ericson hopes that the planned events will be an important step towards the development of cooperation between Russia and Sweden in various spheres.
