New Delhi: Johan Forssell, Sweden's Minister for Foreign Trade will arrive in New Delhi on Thursday for his first official trip to India. This is his first trip to Asia, after having been appointed as Minister in Sweden's new Government on October 18. During his two-day visit, he will meet his counterpart, Piyush Goyal, the Minister of Commerce & Industry, to discuss how to further strengthen the Sweden-India trade relationship. He will also meet with India's G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant to discuss the upcoming presidencies of Sweden and India of the EU and G20 respectively.
Forssell will lead the Swedish delegation at the 20th Indo-Swedish Joint Commission for Economic, Industrial and Scientific Cooperation and will also take part in a business roundtable with representatives of Swedish and Indian companies. Along with Minister Forssell, a business delegation of chairpersons and CEOs of Swedish companies including Ericsson, Astra Zeneca, Saab, Perstorp and Getinge is also visiting India.
India and Sweden enjoy robust and multifaceted bilateral cooperation in diverse areas. More than 250 Swedish companies are present in India and form an important part of the growing economic and trade partnership. 2,00,000 Indians are directly employed in Swedish companies and 2.2 million Indians are indirectly employed by with Swedish business.
A number of Swedish companies have been present in India for a century. Next year, Sweden and India will celebrate 75 years of diplomatic relations. Key areas of cooperation are Innovation, Health Care and Green Transition. Regular high-level interactions and engagements, such as the bilateral meeting between the Prime Ministers of both countries in Copenhagen in May 2022, the Virtual Summit between the Prime Ministers in March 2021 and Prime Minister Modi's visit to Sweden in 2018, have provided momentum to this deepening bilateral partnership. In addition to these interactions, Sweden and India also exchanged reciprocal State visits in 2015 and 2019.