The country offers a relatively cheap and skilled English-speaking workforce. According to several international reports, India will be the country with the youngest and most educated workforce in this century. We can already see this trend in the IT sector, where India is becoming the world's largest provider of IT services and engineering. It is only a matter of time before all the other sectors will catch up with this trend.
Pharmaceuticals are another area that offers future potential, given the size of the Indian market. All these factors make India a potentially good trading partner in the long term, which us Swedes should be aware of. Another potential area for future cooperation is environmental technology and renewable energy given the fact that Sweden has great skills within this area.
It has been reluctance from some Swedish small and medium sized businesses to come forward to invest in India, but in recent years they have explored the industries in India because of cost advantages and a growing market. The heat in India also contributes to business opportunities for Swedish companies when they are in need of air conditioning. Swedish climate and fan companies should see India as a market with great potential since India is in urgent need of fans and similar products when the temperature is relatively high all year around.
In 2008 there were 104 Swedish affiliated companies which had operations in India. Furthermore, there are 1200 companies that regularly do business by 1 million SEK and up. Currently, about 320 000 Indians are employed by Swedish companies and out of these 290 000 are employed indirectly through Indian companies.
More and more companies discover India and its opportunities. Swedish companies believe that India is an important growth market. The strong interest from the industry for the Indian market in 2003 led to the formation of the Sweden-India Business Council (SIBC).
115 Swedish companies are in place right now in the country - a significant increase when there three years ago only was about 50. Most Indian companies in Sweden belong to the IT sector. In Sweden, there are around 20 Indian companies today.
Examples of strong growth areas: - Equipment for the generators and transmission of electricity
Cecilia Helland