Publications

This is a brief summary of the report Sverige i EU (Sweden in the EU). The full version is only available in Swedish.

Sverige i EU (full report)

In the report the National Board of Trade presents and comments a large amount of statistics on trade, investments, freedom of movement, economic growth and productivity. The aim is to illustrate how the Swedish economy has developed during the last decades, with a certain focus on the development after becoming member of the EU and part of the internal market.

Sweden’s openness to the rest of the world, measured as the proportion of foreign trade in GDP, has more than doubled in the past 50 years.

This is a paper about investment screening mechanisms in four Nordic countries. The paper serves as basis for a discussion on the topic of  'European origins – the EU Member States' Rules on Screening Foreign Investment' at the research conference 'A Common European Law on Investment Screening' in Gothenburg on 7–8 March 2019.

The number of Free-Trade Agreements (FTAs) continues to grow and increasingly set the rules for world trade. The effects of these agreements go beyond the contracting parties and also extend to third countries. This has often been seen as negative because trade diversion, caused by tariff preferences, distorts trade and discriminates against third countries.

However, a specific FTA is not necessarily negative for a third country that is not party to the actual agreement. The long-term dynamic effects might serve to multilateralise FTAs and FTAs might also spur unilateral trade liberalisation. Notwithstanding any speculation about such effects, a lot of FTA provisions could benefit third countries in various ways. It is these potential benefits that are the focus of this study.

In July 2018, the UK government published a policy paper with proposals for what the future relationship between the UK and the EU should look like. The policy paper should be seen as the UK’s opening bid for negotiations on the future relationship.

The analysis covers those areas of the policy paper that fall within
the scope of the National Board of Trade's area of expertise – the EU
single market, international trade and trade policy.

This is a summary in English of our more detailed analysis in Swedish of the proposals in the UK policy paper: Storbritanniens vitbok om den framtida relationen med EU - en analys av förslagen

Brexit will affect Swedish financial services suppliers. Potentially, the up-coming negotiations on the future relationship between the EU and the United Kingdom (UK) can soften any potential negative impact. The aim of this report is to identify the trade model that best minimizes these negative effects. The findings are based only on trade concerns; other policy goals are not taken into account.

This report shows that regional trade agreements stimulate trade effectively. Customs unions and other deep integration agreements have the strongest trade effects.

Since the early 1990s, there has been a sharp increase in regional trade agreements. Today, they are a familiar part of the world trading system. Given the importance of regional trade agreements for today’s global trade, it is surprising that relatively little solid information is available regarding their effects. In recent years, however, scholars have made significant progress in estimating the trade effects of regional trade agreements. In an effort to compile the new evidence in an easily accessible format, the National Board of Trade Sweden now publishes a review of the most recent research.

Read a summary of the report in Swedish here

The objective of this report is to describe the function of IT security, to define by which means IT security in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) products can be regulated and to highlight in which manner the regulation of IT security has a bearing on international trade and market access. The ambition of this report is also to discuss whether greater harmonisation of regulation in the field of IT security for ICT products is possible, as the current regulatory landscape is rather fragmented compared to many other product areas.

The purpose of this analysis is to identify what is most important for Sweden in a future EU-UK agreement, in order to mitigate the negative effects of Brexit. The key sectors proposed as Swedish priorities will need to be (1) particularly important for Sweden's trade with the UK and (2) sectors in which Brexit might lead to significant trade barriers.

The risks posed by Brexit seem to be relatively limited in some of the sectors where Sweden has very specific interests (mineral oils, paper, wood, iron and steel, protection of intellectual property and retail trade). However, that only means that the regulatory framework for bilateral trade in a 'no-deal' scenario, compared to the current situation, does not appear to create significant problems for those sectors as a whole. Still, individual companies may be adversely affected, especially if their products are price-sensitive. Even if trade in goods within these sectors will not be faced with high customs tariffs, Brexit will mean more administration and more requirements to be met, such as customs formalities. This will increase costs for business.

We conclude that focus should be on two sectors in particular: motor vehicles and business services. Motor vehicles is a sector with detailed technical rules and high tariffs. In this sector, a solution similar to those the EU already has with Switzerland, Japan and South Korea may be needed in order to avoid significant trade barriers.

This publication is a summary of the full report (only available in Swedish)

The issue of free trade negotiations has increasingly become the focus of the trade policy agenda. As such, it is increasingly important to base negotiating proposals and policy decisions on empirical data and objective facts.

This report – prepared in collaboration between the National Board of Trade Sweden and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) – constitutes a first effort to analyse the use of tariff preferences in free trade agreements from both parties and from both an exporter and importer perspective. The observations and findings are based on the EU’s free trade agreements with a number of developed and developing countries.