Farewell and a final update from the Ambassador HE Pär Ahlberger

Dear friends,
The time has come for me to take farewell after five intensive and stimulating years in Oceania. My family and I will return to Sweden in August. As Team Sweden Australia we have relaunched a structured and long term Trade, Investment and Sweden Promotion in the region. We leave an important legacy.

Australia is now Sweden’s 4th largest export market outside Europe. Behind the US, China, and Japan. Our exports to Australia have increased by 57% since 2014. Swedish related companies in Australia have some 20.000 employees, generating 60.000 jobs.

Last year we commemorated 190 years of trade relations between Sweden and Australia. SACC is one of the oldest national chambers of commerce in Australia, soon celebrating its 110th anniversary.

All successful trade promotion is based on three necessary preconditions:

  1. The local Team Sweden network must have an understanding of the local footprint of the Swedish business community, including the opportunities and challenges.
  2. The Swedish network must work as a team.
  3. The team must have jointly identified long term priorities.

These preconditions did not exist in 2014. It was a great weakness. Since then we have taken a series of initiatives to strengthen all these three fundamental factors.

To understand the local footprint

We have presented two Swedish Business Footprint Reports and a Business Climate Survey which have proved invaluable. We also contributed to a Swedish FTA-report. I recommend that the footprint report and the Business Climate Report are updated in 2019 or early 2020.

Teamwork

We have established Team Sweden, a Business Support Office and the obvious honorary role for the Ambassador in the Board of SACC. We have opened chapters of SACC in Melbourne and Perth. I hope Brisbane can also be added to the list. Our Honorary Consuls are engaged more than ever in trade and Sweden promotion. We have organised a series of trade missions. The Swedish Business Awards is now a joint collaboration between the Embassy and SACC. The Embassy contribute with articles to Swedelink. A publication on our proud historic trade relations has been published.

To work with jointly agreed long term priorities

We give priority to the Mining, Health and Defence & Security sectors. We have established a railway cluster. We also focus on the negotiations on Free Trade Agreements and the implementations of the Sustainable Development Goals.

We have, in a similar way relaunched the Sweden Promotion in the region with a few overall themes. The Raoul Wallenberg exhibition To me there’s no other choice toured Australia for four years. The Swedish Dads exhibition and project will now be launched in New Zealand after the success in Australia. The Solander Project is the single most extensive Swedish project in New Zealand ever. It will arrive in Australia in May 2020 and later tour the very north of Sweden. We connect the Arctic and Pacific Regions in a unique way. It was a great privilege to become the first Ambassador of Sweden to the entire South Pacific.

Pär Ahlberger together with daughter Lousie
Ambassador Pär Ahlberger together with his daughter Louise outside the Solander exhibition in Wellington. It was the starting point of the most extensive collaboration between Sweden, New Zealand and Australia ever. 250 years of friendship.

We have certainly achieved a lot. Let me thank you for your friendship and support. It has been a privilege to collaborate with you, also in the loose network “Friends of Pär”. I wish you all the very best for the future.

Pär Ahlberger
Ambassador of Sweden to Oceania
2014 – 2019

SWEDELINK Newsletter Winter 2019

SWEDELINK Newsletter Winter 2019

Breakfast Seminar with Erik Thedéen

SACC Sydney held an engaging business seminar 16 May 2019 with special guest speaker Erik Thedéen, Director General of Finansinspektionen (the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority) who gave us an insight to the Swedish economy today and the development in the last 10 years since the GFC.

Erik Thedeen presenting to SACC 16 May 2019

Erik Thedéen presented Finansinspektionens (FI) role and importance in the market. FI is the equivalent organisation in Sweden to ASIC and APRA. FI supervises:

  • 1,800 financial companies with authorisation from FI.
  • An additional 500 registered companies in accordance with the anti-money laundering regulations.
  • Accounting disclosures from 300 listed companies.
  • 20,000 foreign financial firms and funds with authorisation from foreign supervisory authorities that also have primary supervision responsibility.

FI is financed by fees from companies under its supervision. These fees are determined by the Government. The companies consists of banks, credit unions, investment firms, fund management companies, insurance companies, insurance intermediaries, stock exchange and trading venues, payment service providers and consumer credit firms. FI’s main purpose is to contribute to a stable financial system that is characterised by a high level of confidence and well- functioning markets, while at the same time providing comprehensive protection for consumers.

Erik spoke generally about the economy in Sweden which is very strong at the moment with an employment growth of up to 2% on a yearly basis with a very low unemployment.

“Sweden has the highest employment rate per 100 people in the world. With these circumstances we should have a high inflation, be we don’t. There is no inflation hence very low interest rates, actually minus interest rate in Sweden. This situation with strong growth and no interest rate will encourage corporates and households to borrow as it doesn’t cost you anything. The market reacted clearly to these signals and as a result the household dept to the disposable income rose from 100-180% in the last 10 years or so. If people borrow a lot in relation to their income is fine as long as you have a job and the interest rates are low, but as soon as something hit this equation you are at high risk. What is not predicted to happen in Sweden is large credit loss within banks because of the increased household loans because typically in Sweden households pay their debt, mortgage and interest rates. Why? Because we have a social security system in Sweden which secures some kind of an income if the economy turns down and also the bankruptcy laws are pretty tough in Sweden compared to other countries.”

The house prices in Sweden has gone up more or less 100% in the last 10 years with a small drop in the end of 2017. A similar pattern as to the Australian housing market.

“People who owns a property are better off than the newcomers who can’t afford the rising property prices. Nothing happens to the economy, the productivity and long employment. The only thing that happens is that you have a large distribution effect from the insiders versa the outsiders, but this is typically not understood.”

o stabilise the market certain measures has been implemented such as stricter amortisation requirement e.g. new borrowers with mortgage loans exceeding 4.5 times gross income shall repay at least 1% of the mortgage in excess of the first amortisation requirement. To read more about the mortgage market and other presentations from Erik Thedéen and FI visit https://www.fi.se/en/published/presentations/.

Thanks to all members and guests attending this breakfast seminar and special thanks to Erik Thedéen from FI and Vincent Tropiano for hosting us at Grant Thorntons CBD venue.

Grant Thornton