Letter from the Chairman of the Swedish Chamber of Commerce in China - November 2024

Beijing, November 14, 2024

Dear Members,

We recently saw the results of the US election and it is no exaggeration to say that this will inject increasing uncertainty into the business environment for Swedish companies active in the Chinese market. There are many scenarios depicting how things will play out and despite early announcements of key officials in the US government it is too early to tell how the relationship between the US and China will develop and what the effects for us working here in China for European companies will be.

In this context it is vital, as I have previously underlined, to increase contacts between China and Sweden and to improve the knowledge of each other’s reality on the ground on both sides. It has been a long-standing request from the Chamber to have increased communication between the Swedish and Chinese governments. We have not seen a visit to China by a Swedish Minister for more than six years and the same goes for visits to Sweden by a Chinese high level government officials.

We are therefore very pleased and grateful for the visit last week of Mr Benjamin Dousa, Minister of Trade, who visited Shanghai, in connection with the CIIE, and Beijing for government meetings including with Minister Wang  of MofCom as well as with other High-Level Chinese officials.

We were also very happy that Mr Dousa took the opportunity to meet with many of our members both in Shanghai and Beijing, who were able  to provide their comments to him. I was also able to in a separate meeting provide the view of the current situation on behalf to the Chamber members.

From the Chamber we hope that the visit of Mr Dousa is only the first of a number of Swedish ministers whom we hope to see visiting China and of course also to see Chinese High-Level Officials visit Sweden. In the current situation it is vital to promote a deeper understanding between our two countries, which we are convinced will be beneficial also to us in the Swedish business community here in China.

A couple of weeks ago we had the annual strategy day where the Board of the Chamber and the Beijing and Shanghai Chapter Committees meet during an afternoon to discuss current challenges and opportunities for member companies and how the Chamber best can support our members. We had, as usual, very good discussions and we will revert to you as this is also an annual occasion that we always use to refresh our Chamber Strategy. I would like to thank our G M Malin Hammarén and the Chamber team for excellent preparations and all the participants for their engagement and valuable input. We will revert to you with more details.

I trust that you all follow the Chamber activities in some of the channels of communication available to our members and join us on the many interesting events that the Chamber team has worked on a lot. I look forward to meeting many of you at one or more of these events. Be sure to check our calendar of events and sign up for something that interests you!

Best regards,

Peter

Peter Ling-Vannerus

Chairman of Swedish Chamber of Commerce in China