Almost 70 per cent of Swedish industrial companies have more than 10 foreign suppliers of intermediate goods. There is a trend towards smaller medium-sized companies increasing the number of suppliers, while larger medium-sized companies and large companies are reducing theirs.
While the bulk of Swedish industrial companies' supplier networks are in Western Europe, half of these companies also have suppliers in China. These suppliers provide components that are crucial for the competitiveness of the Swedish industry.
Although the US has strengthened its position compared with the survey conducted by Business Sweden three years ago, it still plays a more peripheral role in the supply of intermediate goods.
However, the survey indicates that the weight of both China and the US in companies' supplier networks will decline over the next three years.
Some reallocation from China to Europe and other parts of Asia is expected, while the trend for the US is clearer: a third of companies with US-based suppliers are planning to reduce their purchases from there.
A clear change that we can see from this year's survey is that free trade agreements with the EU will become much more important over the next three years.
