SWEDEN IMPROVES COMPETITIVE POSITION AS POPULAR PLACE FOR BUSINESS

According to U.N. statistics in 1995, Sweden was one of the top three European locations of worldwide corporate investment, surpassed only by the United Kingdom and France. The number of U.S. companies in Sweden increased from 350 to 560 between 1990 and 1996, and there are now more than 47,000 employees in American-owned companies located in Sweden.

In the past year, Sweden has improved its competitive position as a popular location for call centers, health care facilities and other economic relocations. American executives are learning that:
In a recent survey among foreign companies in Sweden, almost 90 percent said Sweden offers an adequate supply of skilled labor. Skilled labor costs about 20 percent less than in The Netherlands and about 35 percent less than in Germany.
Office space in Stockholm costs less than the European average. Interest rates are less than 6 percent; inflation is below 1 percent; and Sweden's 28 percent corporate tax rate is the lowest in the European Union.
In the first half of the 1990s, Sweden's increases in-labor productivity have been among the largest within the western world, ahead of the United States and the United Kingdom.
Sweden offers free tuition for all levels of schooling, from elementary and secondary schools through universities and graduate schools.
Swedes are highly computer-literate -- for example. Sweden has some 600 software companies plus 400 companies that specialize in new media, such as the Internet and multimedia.
Stockholm's cost-of-living index is below Frankfurt and Paris, just above Amsterdam. But its quality-of-living index is the second highest in Europe and ranks above New York's.
There were 700 pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device companies in Sweden as of 1995. These companies have been growing rapidly: between 1980 and 1994, the country's pharmaceutical exports expanded at an annual compound rate of 14.7 percent
The telecommunications industry was deregulated in 1993, and Telia's phone costs are among the lowest in the world. Sweden was the first Scandinavian country to comply fully with EU regulations for the liberalization of Telecom equipment and services. Sweden is also the choice of United States executives for a variety of less tangible reasons.
International experience

Perhaps the most striking characteristic of the Swedes is their international experience. With an expanding export industry and a relatively small home market, Swedes at an early stage had to achieve international business know-how and learn foreign languages in order to be successful.

While many of the world's major corporations have been expanding globally in recent years, Swedish companies have been doing so since the 1800s. Today Sweden boasts a greater number of multinational corporations per capita than any other country, including ABB, Ericsson, Electrolux and Atlas Copco -- all recently named by Financial Times and Price Waterhouse as among the most respected European businesses. Sweden's Alfred Nobel is credited with creating the first real modern multinational. Since the 1860s, he owned dynamite factories in many nations. By the turn of the century, Nobel's pattern had been followed by other Swedish entrepreneurs in their specialized fields. Many international companies were founded in Sweden due to the local invention of products such as the telephone switch, the refrigerator, the adjustable wrench, the Pacemaker and the computer mouse.
Labor and management

The World Economic Forum (1997) ranks Sweden second in the world for its managers' international experience and language skills. The same report places Sweden as number three for its firms' marketing skills, right behind the United States and Hong Kong. In customer orientation Sweden ranks number five.

Swedes strive for consensus and cooperation at work. They see conflict as inappropriate and unproductive.

lsingborg won the title of European Port of the Year in 1994. Thanks to the $2.2 billion bridge and tunnel link between Copenhagen in Denmark and Malmo in southern Sweden, by the year 2000 Sweden will have an unbroken fixed link to the rest of Europe.