The Diplomat
The last day of the state visit of the King and Queen of Spain to Sweden had a strong economic character, with the inauguration of a business seminar dedicated to innovation and sustainability in which the employers’ organizations of the two countries pledged to strengthen their bilateral collaboration.
Early yesterday, King Philip VI held a meeting with businessmen before attending, together with King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, the opening of the Sweden-Spain Business Seminar, which was attended by more than 80 companies from both countries and was organized by the Secretary of State for Trade, ICEX, the CEOE and the Spanish Chamber of Commerce in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Sweden and Business Sweden (the Swedish equivalent of ICEX).
During this meeting, whose main focus was innovation and sustainability, the King said that Sweden is “a great example for other European countries” in terms of innovation and recalled, in this regard, that the European Commission has declared it “the most innovative country in the European Union for the last eleven years”. Likewise, he continued, “in 2021, the latest Report on the Digital Economy and Society Index, produced by the Commission, points out that Spain is well above the European average” in this area. “We are the third country in the EU with the best connectivity, highlighting the widespread effective installation of very high capacity networks,” he added.
For her part, the Secretary of State for Trade, Xiana Méndez, stated during the same event that “the Swedish and Spanish economies are two clear examples of open economies in which the foreign sector plays an important role as an engine of growth”. Méndez herself moderated a panel in which the presidents of CEOE, the Spanish Chamber of Commerce, the confederation of Swedish businesswomen (Svenskt Näringgsliv) and Business Sweden shared their impressions and experiences on innovation and sustainability.
CEOE and Swedish employers’ association strengthen their cooperation
In addition, the president of the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE), Antonio Garamendi, met with the head of Svenskt Näringgsliv, Fredrik Persson, to “strengthen bilateral collaboration relations between the two business organizations” and to discuss reforms, European funds, the recovery after the pandemic and the measures taken in the two countries, as reported by the Spanish employers’ association in a press release. The two parties – integrated in BusinessEurope, the European employers’ organization – also agreed on a Swedish business visit to Spain in the first half of 2022.
Bilateral trade relations between Spain and Sweden have remained solid even in the context of the strong generalized contraction of the pandemic. In 2020 as a whole, Spanish exports to Sweden experienced a year-on-year increase of more than 4%. Likewise, Sweden’s gross investment flow in Spain amounted to 1,421.33 million euros in 2020 (311.49 million in 2019) and Spanish gross investment in Sweden amounted to 807.14 million euros in 2020 (122.74 million in 2019).
Spanish, the second language of Swedish students
On the other hand, Queen Letizia, accompanied by Queen Silvia of Sweden, visited the Bernadotte Library at the Royal Palace in Stockholm, to participate in a seminar on language, literature and translation, with the collaboration of the Instituto Cervantes and the Institute of Sweden. Spanish is the second most important foreign language among Swedish high school students, after English. In Spain, interest in Swedish literature translated into Spanish has grown over the last decade, especially interest in detective stories and children’s literature.
At mid-morning, Philip VI and Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden paid a visit to the Royal Institute of Technology of Stockholm KTH with a focus on sustainable, intelligent and safe mobility of people and goods in a post-pandemic scenario. Founded in 1827, KTH is the largest institution in Sweden for technological research and training and hosts students, researchers and professors from all over the world.
At noon, the King and Queen of Spain attended a luncheon hosted by the City of Stockholm in their honor. At the event, held in the Golden Hall of the City Hall -the place where the Nobel Prize dinner is held-, the Golden Key of the City was presented and the King and Queen signed the Book of Honor of the Swedish capital.
Next, Philip VI, accompanied by the King of Sweden, visited the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, where he attended a discussion session between Spanish and Swedish experts on sustainable energy and climate change. Later, a reception offered by the King and Queen of Spain in honor of the King and Queen of Sweden concluded the State visit, the first by a King of Spain to Sweden since 1979, when Juan Carlos I and Sofia visited Sweden also at the invitation of King Carl XVI Gustaf.
