India-Sweden Relations

• 1959 - Swedish Prime Minister Mr. Tage Erlander’s visit to India.

• June 1972- Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi attended the UN Conference in Stockholm and met Prime Minister Olof Palme.

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• January 1985 & 1986- Prime Minister Olof Palme visited India

• January, 1986- Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi visits Sweden.

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• 1988- Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi participated in the Six Nations Summit in Sweden.

• October 1993- King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia visited India.

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• June 1997-Avoidance of Double Taxation Agreement signed.

• July, 2000- Bilateral Investment Protection Agreement (BIPA), signed on

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• November 2000-Mr. Kjell Larsson, Minister of Environment visited India.

• 2001- Swedish Presidency of the EU, External Affairs Minister & Defence Minister, Shri Jaswant Singh visited Sweden for India and EU Troika.

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• October, 2002-CII delegation visits Sweden.

• April, 2003- Mr. Leif Pagrotsky, Minister for Trade & Industry visited India. He led an official and business delegation for the Indo-Swedish Joint Commission Meeting held at New Delhi. An MoU was signed between CII and its Swedish counterpart CSE.

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• May, 2003-Presentation and unveiling of Rabindranath Tagore Statue at the Nobel Museum, Stockholm by former President K.R. Narayanan.

• 9-11 Jan, 2004- Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson visited India. This was the first visit of a Head of Government from Sweden to India in 17 years since the visit in 1986 by late Swedish PM Olof Palme.

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• The Swedish Development Cooperation Minister Ms. Carin Jamtin visited India from 22-23 January 2004.

• Mr. Lars Olof Lindgren, Director General of Trade Policy in Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs led a 32 member business to India from October 25-29, 2004.

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• A 12-member Swedish Defence Commission consisting of Parliamentarians, experts and staff from Sweden visited India from November 2-7, 2004.

• Hans Dahlgren, State Secretary in the Foreign Ministry visited India from 8-10 December, 2004.

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• A 17-member delegation from the Swedish Parliamentary Committee on Constitution paid a study visit to India on 19-25 February, 2005.

• Shri Dayanidhi Maran, Minister for Communications & Information Technology, visited Sweden from June 28-29, 2005

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Political Relations: Relations between India and Sweden can be described as stable and multi-dimensional with visible signs of improvement. During his statement of Government Policy presented to the Parliament on 16th September 2003 Prime Minister Persson outlined several important proposals in which he especially mentioned India along with Brazil and South Africa for intensifying cooperation. This was repeated again
in September 2004.

Important Bilateral Treaties and Agreements, with brief notes

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1. Bilateral Investment Protection Agreement (BIPA), signed on July 4 2000 - provides for national and most favoured treatment of investments and guarantees free transfer of profits and capital in case of phasing out an investment, as well as full compensation in case of expropriation and similar measures.

2. Avoidance of Double Taxation Agreement, signed in June 1997. Commercial and Economic Relations, with trade, aid and investment details During the period January-December 2003 exports to Asia fell by 7 per cent, while imports from there increased by 10 per cent. Sweden’s export to India increased by 14%
during the year while Indian exports to Sweden grew by 12%. India became the 20th largest market for Sweden.

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Trade Centres in each other’s country

Swedish Trade Council has an office in India
Swedish Trade Commission
C/o Embassy of Sweden
Nyaya Marg
Chanakya Puri
New Delhi-11002
Tel :0091-11-24107142,24107143, 24107144
Fax :0091 –11 -24105183,24104983
Email : newdelhi@swedishtrade.se
Contact Person: Aashid Sawjani

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Trade Exhibitions in each other’s country
Participation in major trade exhibitions is encouraged. Embassy participated in GastroNord 2003, in Stockholm, the largest fair in Scandinavia on food, restaurant and catering business. Embassy also participates regularly in Travel and Tourism fairs at Gothenburg and Stockholm. Swedish companies participate in Leather Expo and Auto Expo in India. A list of Sweden’s important trade fairs and exhibition centers can be seen at http://www.expocentral.com/location/Europe/Europe_Sweden.html

Investments into India (volume/areas)
Sweden ranks 20th in the list of countries investing in India during January 1998 to October 2003 with consolidated investment amounting to Rs. 8527.33 Million. Areas of investment include engineering and construction, health care and pharmaceuticals, rockdrills, power tools and loading machines, metallurgy, white goods, telecommunication, furniture, pharmaceuticals, automobile and truck manufacturing,
steel, insurance, packaging, ball bearing, matches and lighting equipment and in the defence sector.

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Investments from India: Nine Indian IT companies are operational in Sweden and include HCL Technologies, L&T Information Technology, Tata Consultancy Services, WIPRO, Infosys, Mascot Systems, Sasken Communication Technologies Ltd and Cellnext Solutions. They have business partnership/collaboration with major Swedish companies like Ericsson, Telia, Volvo, Skandia, Electrolux, Microsoft Mobile, Vattenfall, ABB etc.

Development assistance: Since early 1990, Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) funded by Ministry of Foreign Affairs pursued its development cooperation with India. In 1998 development cooperation relations with India were cancelled except for continuation of financial support for ongoing projects. In 2000 Sweden revived development cooperation under revised guidelines.

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S&T relations, cooperation in other fields such as Railways, Space, IT, Biotechnology, Infrastructure, Mining, etc – During the January 2004 visit of PM Göran Persson it was decided that the two countries shall consider collaboration in cutting edge technology, biotechnology and environmental technology.

Relevant Area Studies’ Centres in the two countries – There are no Chairs of Indian Studies in the Universities in Sweden. There are Departments of History, South Asia and Religious Studies in the Universities of Uppsala and Lund which are the main centers for South Asian Studies. There is a good academic interest in India, both from researchers and students, who pursue courses on India’s religions, culture, society, mainly at these two Universities.

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SASNET - Swedish South Asian Studies Network is SASNET is a national network for research, education, and information about South Asia, based at Lund University (Sweden). It encourages and promotes networking for Swedish researchers with researchers in South Asia and globally. The network is open to all sciences. Priority is given to co-operation between disciplines and across faculties, as well as institutions in
Nordic countries and in South Asia. SASNET is financed by SIDA(Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency) and Lund University.

SASNET International Office, P O Box 117, S-221 00 Lund, Sweden.
Phone:+46462227340
website: www.sasnet.lu.se

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Other Indian training/ assistance schemes: Every year Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) grants two scholarships to Swedish students under an MOU signed between ICCR and Swedish Institute.

Cultural Troupes – Incoming & Outgoing over last few years: There is an increase in cultural interaction between two countries, the most successful project on the cultural front has been the Swedish Indian Translation Project with release of translation of two novels “Samskara” by Dr. U.R. Anantha Murthy and “Ai Ladki” by Ms. Krishna Sobti into Swedish. Translation of two Swedish literary works into Hindi and Kannada has commenced. Some Indian artists have performed in various Swedish cities at the invitation of Swedish associations/organizations. Indian cinema has become popular and screening of Indian feature films at the annual Stockholm Film Festival has become a regular feature.

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