Publications

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.

Has Swedish exports of goods been held back due to trade barriers introduced since the financial crisis? According to this report, the answer is yes in relation to China but no in relation to the United States and Japan. Trade within the EU does not seem to have been affected much by trade barriers or trade distortions introduced globally since the financial crisis.

In this report, the National Board of Trade Sweden evaluates its TBT-related development cooperation activities for the last ten years. The evaluation maps out both pitfalls and success factors in developing effective and sustainable TBT capacity building. 

The main focus of this report is the links between trade and the social dimension of sustainable development. The report provides a comprehensive and holistic overview of relevant issues within trade and social sustainability, with a special focus on human rights, labour rights/working conditions and gender equality. The report also maps out trade related instrumentwith the potential to contribute to social sustainability, and it describes how the potential for trade to contribute to social sustainability is dependent on both national preconditions and complementary reforms.

The report was published in Swedish in November 2016: Handel och social hållbarhet - en kartläggning och analys