Ewa Björling led trade delegation to Baghdad
For the first time in 20 years, a Swedish trade delegation has visited Iraq's capital, Baghdad. The visit was led by Minister for Trade Ewa Björling, who was invited to Iraq in connection with the major conference on the country's reconstruction that was held in Stockholm in May.
The Swedish entrepreneurs who travelled with Dr Björling met 14 Iraqi ministers. Photo: Jens Eriksson/MFA
"For a small country like Sweden that depends on exports, it is very important to try to enter new, emerging markets as early as possible. I therefore felt it was important to travel to Baghdad now, and I am pleased that there was such great interest shown by our Swedish companies," says Dr Björling.
Lately, there has been rapid improvement in the security situation in Iraq, which has contributed to an increased interest in the Iraqi market. Despite this, to date there are very few countries that have sent official trade delegations to Baghdad.
"We received a very warm welcome from the Iraqis, who emphasised the importance of the signals that our visit to their capital helped send. In the words of our hosts: Baghdad is open for business," says Dr Björling.
In Baghdad, the delegation met 14 ministers of the Iraqi government, including Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, Minister of Finance Bayan Jabr, Minister of Foreign Affairs Hoshyar Zebari, Minister of Industry Fawzi Hariri, Minister of Defence Abdul Qader al-Obaidi and Minister of Oil Hussein al-Shahristani.
The delegation visited Sweden's future embassy, which is under construction and is expected to open in the spring of 2009. The intensive programme also included meetings with Iraqi business leaders, representatives of public authorities and individual business meetings.
Very little advance information about the trip has been available due to the prevailing security situation.
