Two million Swedes, a fifth of the country’s population, visit Spain a normal year. Additionally, an increasing number of Swedes are choosing to relocate to Spain. Spain is the second country in the world, only after the USA, with the biggest Swedish diaspora.
In the past few years, however, the true success story in the Swedish-Spanish relations has been the commercial exchange, showing some impressive growth figures. Since 2017, both Spanish exports to Sweden and Swedish exports to Spain – both in goods and in services – have doubled in value.
More than 3 out of 4 of the companies surveyed (77 per cent) reported a profitable year in 2023, similar to prior years surveyed. Sweden has, in general, a very good reputation in Spain, and this aspect does contribute to the success of Swedish companies in the market.
As has been highlighted in previous years’ surveys, sustainability is rarely a factor impacting whether a product or service would be purchased and is seen more as a “good to have” or a bonus. Nevertheless, we can see that our responding companies are indicating an increase in the extent to which their Spanish customers are considering environmental aspects compared to last year’s survey.
Please download the report to fully overview the results with a detailed analysis.
ABOUT THE SURVEY
During the spring of 2024, Team Sweden Spain (the Embassy of Sweden in Madrid, Business Sweden, the Swedish-Spanish Chamber of Commerce, and the Swedish-Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Barcelona) have once again joined forces and carried out a business climate survey among Swedish companies present in Spain.
Almost 180 Swedish companies out of the approximately 600 Swedish companies present in the Spanish market received the survey, the main question being about how these companies perceive the business climate in Spain. Sixty-one companies responded to the survey, which was conducted in February-March of 2024, thus yielding a response rate of around 33 per cent.
We would like to take the opportunity to extend our most sincere gratitude to the participating companies for the knowledge and insights that they have shared with us – without these companies the survey would have not been possible.
