At a breakfast meeting on April 24e held by Stockholm Business Region the theme was "The financial crisis - what happened?"
Attendees included Cecilia Hermansson from Swedbank and Olle Zetterberg CEO of Stockholm Business Region. At this meeting, the financial crisis and its impact on different countries and what can be done for the future was discussed.
The Baltic region is the worst affected but there are also countries that have done relatively well.
Cecilia Hermansson discussed various topics surrounding the crisis and mentioned repeatedly that everything has gone very quickly and that we focus too much on when the crisis will turn instead of analyzing the situation.
Furthermore, different countries and their situation were discussed. Other countries' financial situation affects Sweden's economy since we are extremely dependent on export due to the fact that we export to many countries. One advantage for Sweden, however, is that we have many different industries and good educations notes Cecilia.
One wonders of course, which countries that have manage to do well in the crises. Cecilia says that India and China are two countries that have had a good structure conversion and that is why these two countries continues to grow during the crisis. These countries are popular markets for foreign companies. Cecilia says that China is a country that believes in future success and is optimistic.
But what will happen in the Baltic region? June is an important month for Latvia. The economy may go down by 15 percent this year but the IMF has become more understanding that it not only about the numbers and this will of course affect the situation. What will happen in the Baltic countries will also affect the Swedish economy.
Cecilia concludes by saying that we do not know yet how big the losses will be, but to create trust is an incredibly important part in this situation.
Cecilia Helland