S’pore, Sweden can learn from each other on social cohesion, competitiveness: President Tharman

GOTHENBURG - Beyond the formal agreements to collaborate in high-tech fields like quantum and 6G, Singapore and Sweden will continue to learn from each other in more systemic areas.

This includes each country’s approach to keeping their society together and to stay competitive in a more difficult world, said President Tharman Shanmugaratnam on Oct 21.

Speaking to reporters on the final day of his state visit to Sweden, the President noted that both countries seek to bring everyone along in economic progress, and can exchange ideas in this area.

He noted that the Swedes are very proud of their egalitarian “horizontal culture”, and their country’s deep commitment to the idea of making sure that everyone moves up together.

On Oct 20, he visited Fryshuset, an organisation in Stockholm that empowers youth from all backgrounds, including those with difficulties, to gain confidence, develop themselves, and feel that they play a role in society.

At the same time, Sweden has been able to produce individuals and entrepreneurs who set very ambitious goals for themselves, he noted. The country has one of the highest proportions of business unicorns in the world relative to population size, a term that refers to companies with a valuation of over US$1 billion (S$1.28 billion).

“Not everyone is like that of course, but they’ve been able to keep that balance,” said President Tharman.

Swedish corporate culture has also evolved from one that used to involve quite transactional relationships towards something more collaborative.

Employees from successful startups have gone on to found their own companies, while successful founders have gone on to invest in other companies, noted the President.

“That dense community of entrepreneurs they have created is quite impressive,” he said. “It involves collaboration, it involves mentorship, and it involves investing in each other.”

Singapore and Sweden are also similar in that both governments take the view that they have to enable companies to grow and compete internationally. But they do so not by intruding in corporate strategy, but by having a predictable regulatory environment and through overseas business promotion, he added.

President Tharman said the Swedes, more than most other countries in Europe, have a strong system of funding for emerging enterprises. This includes a thriving angel investor community, who succeed in their investments and recycle their gains into the next set of start-ups.

“These are things which are not new to us,” said President Tharman. “We have our own aspirations in start-up
funding, and there’s something to learn from Sweden.”

During President Tharman’s state visit, which commemorates the 60th anniversary of bilateral relations, the two countries agreed to a joint declaration on strategic cooperation on trusted and innovative technologies.

Among other things, both governments will explore cooperation in areas including semiconductors, Internet of Things technologies, AI models and applications, quantum technologies and 5G and 6G applications.

The President also made visits to the premises of Swedish firms Spotify, Ericsson and Volvo across his five-day trip.

In his wrap-up interview, the President also spoke about the Swedes’ longstanding culture of business-trade union collaboration, that beyond wage bargaining is increasingly about how much companies should invest in their workers.

“They are working out strategies so that even if not every job remains the same, people are taken care of,” he said. “The large corporates are able to redeploy people within their own companies; smaller ones often help people move on somewhere else.”

This is also what Singapore seeks to do, and where the two countries can learn from each other, he said.

Besides their similarities, President Tharman said Singapore and Sweden can work together because they have developed a relationship of trust over the last 60 years.

From defence technology in the early days, the two sides expanded their cooperation to different areas of research and development, including education and now energy, he noted.

“So it’s been a productive visit, not just because of the agreements we are moving along on – in energy, in AI, in quantum, in 6G, in material science and other areas,” he said.

“But also because of the way in which we are continuing to learn from each other in our approach to keeping society together, in being competitive, and expanding possibilities for ourselves in a world that’s more difficult than before.”