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– As I understand it, you have come to St Petersburg to sign a contract of cooperation between the two cities?
– Yes, that’s right.
– The main topic of this issue is “Strategy”. Could you tell us whether it is a strategic cooperation, and why it is strategic?
– It is a framework agreement about enterprise cooperation, science and technology, social and health affairs, culture, tourism, youth cooperation, and so on. We already have a lot of contact with St Petersburg, but with such an agreement we can make the contact more structured, and make cooperation between the different state agencies of Stockholm and St Petersburg work in a more focused way. It is not only Stockholm that is participating, but also five other counties which make up one third of the total Swedish population. But this is also part of a larger picture for us. We created the so-called Baltic Sea Ring strategy this autumn, which promotes regional partnership in the public sector (universities and colleges) and private enterprises in order to foster more structured cooperation between the Baltic Sea countries and regions. There are six markets: the B2B market, consumer market, infrastructure, public procurement, innovation and research, and, finally, competence building. This strategy can be a toolbox for all the actors, whether they are town or county administrations, or private enterprises, or universities: what do they do now (or do not do), why they should cooperate to produce greater synergy. It is a very practical toolbox.
– Is this cooperation regional, or is it between countries?
– No, it’s regional. As I said, it’s five counties.
– To what extent is the program intended to market these areas?
– This will be discussed in the Baltic Development Forum, which is an organization of private enterprises in the Baltic Sea regions; it’s a sort of a network organization based in Copenhagen. We have members of this organization in Stockholm city and county, and there was a discussion this autumn about how to brand the whole Baltic Sea Ring. And this year I will discuss with the different actors how we could also project our competences in the Baltic Sea Ring – St Petersburg, Stockholm, Helsinki, and so on. We’d love to work together more than we do now. So, it’s a very important question which I’m dealing with now.
– Our readers are people who work for Russian companies, or companies that are working with Russia. In what ways will the program affect them?
– I’ve mentioned the markets – B2B, consumer, public procurement, infrastructure, innovation, competence building – all these are economic areas where private enterprises act. We have agreements on Baltic Sea strategy with companies in these areas.
– Many people think that Russia’s brand, and St Petersburg’s brand as a city, still does not have a very positive image in Sweden, nor for Swedish entrepreneurs and businessmen.
– The number of Swedish companies in St Petersburg is increasing, there are one hundred Swedish companies present here at the moment and there are a lot of consulting firms in Stockholm trying to promote trade with Russia. They try to give a more realistic image of what Russia is like.
– Could you somehow formulate, articulate from your point of view, the competitive advantages and core competences of Stockholm and St Petersburg?
– Stockholm is benchmarked as the most innovative region in Europe, according to the European Union. So our competitive advantage is innovation in different fields – information, communication, technology, medicine. We do a lot of research – we have biotechnology firms, the world’s leading medical university; also Stockholm is an important financial centre – in Northern Europe we are the strongest, and our stock exchange covers the other Scandinavian countries and Baltic States. We are good at cross fertilization between sectors. St Petersburg, as I understand it, has very high competence in skilled scientists, especially in the field of mathematics and natural sciences, and computer sciences.
– How would you formulate the strategic advantage of the Baltic Sea region?
– The Baltic Sea university cooperation is a network of 170 universities. Region has a very strong scientific base. Two of the countries in it are highlighted as some of the most innovative countries in the world – they are Finland and Sweden – so, in innovation and science we are strong together, and we have to cooperate to show that.
Interviewed by Yury Voskresenskiy |
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