| Overview
Sweden is situated in northern Europe, on the Scandinavian Peninsula, and shares borders with Norway and Finland. It is one of the larger countries in Europe, covering an area of just under 450,000 square kilometres, and includes the islands of Gotland and Oland in the Baltic Sea. According to the Swedish government in 2007, Sweden had a total population of over 9 million people according to Statistics Sweden, with the majority living in the southern half of the country. Stockholm is the capital and with approximately 800,000 inhabitants the largest city. Other principle towns and cities are Gothenburg, Malmö, Uppsala, Linköping and Västerås.
Sweden is a Constitutional monarchy. It is a member of several international organisations, which include the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the United Nations, the World Trade Organisation and the European Union, which it joined in 1995. However, the country did not enter the euro-zone upon its inception in 1999 and the people of Sweden voted against joining the single currency in a referendum held on 14 September 2003.
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Economy
In the middle of the 19th century, Sweden was amongst the poorest countries of Europe, however the now highly industrialised country has diversified its economy over the last few decades, especially in the period after the World War II, in order to adapt to the decline of its traditional engineering base. Most notably, telecommunications and information technology have been significant areas of growth and Sweden is home to some of the world's largest IT industrial developments, around 70 per cent of the inhabitants are employed in the tertiary sector. The vast majority of agricultural activity takes place in the south and central regions and the majority of its production is barley, wheat, sugar beets; meat and milk.
Today Sweden belongs to the richest countries Europe's and according to the CIA World Factbook, the labour force in 2007 amounted to 4.839 million sharing in agriculture 1.4 per cent, industry 28.9 per cent and services 69.8 per cent. At the beginning of the new millennium, the public finances were in balance. The economic growth was well; the inflation rate in 2007 was approximately 0.9 per cent and the unemployment rate and the government debts decreased while salaries increased.
Back in 2003 the IDC/World Times Information Society Index (ISI) ranked Sweden as the one of world's leading information economies for the fourth consecutive year, with advanced information, computer, Internet, and social infrastructures placing the country in an ideal position to take full advantage of the Information Revolution. The export-oriented market economy's motto is to expand its business all over the world. So it is not surprising that Sweden owned many firms which now account for about 90 per cent of industrial output, of which the engineering sector accounts for 50 per cent of output and exports.
In the IMD World Competitiveness Scoreboard 2006, which takes into account a country's economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency and infrastructure, Sweden was ranked 14th out of 61 countries from around the world.
Sweden is heavily dependent on its export industry. Its important export partners (estimated in 2006) are Germany with 10.4 per cent, Norway with round 9.4 per cent, United States with 7.6 per cent, Denmark with approximately 7.4 per cent, UK with 7.1 per cent, Finland with about 6.4 per cent, Netherlands with 5.1 per cent, France with 5 per cent and Belgium with 4.6 per cent. But the most important import and export trade partners of Sweden are Germany and Great Britain. |
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