Magazine: Strong Swedish presence in Hungary

At the moment there are about 180 Swedish companies present in Hungary and they employ approximately 17,000 people. Márta Böddi, the office manager of Business Sweden in Budapest told our magazine that Hungarian consumers associate Swedish brands with reliability and high quality. However, it isn’t well-known that brands such as Spotify, Minecraft, Skype, Marabou chocolate and Absolut Vodka are also Swedish. Ms Böddi explained that Sweden is one of the most globalised countries in the world.

Márta Böddi

Traditional export products include vehicles, paper products, machinery, telecommunication and pharmaceutical products. Swedish fashion and design also sell well abroad – it is enough to think of the success of Hennes & Mauritz (H&M), Vagabond, Fjällräven or Happy Socks. It is a very important part of Sweden’s export strategy to help e-commerce and the digital economy with a simple regulatory environment.

Business Sweden was established on 1 January 2013 with the merger of the Swedish Trade Council and Invest Sweden. It has more than 50 offices in 46 countries all over the world. The task of these delegations is to support Swedish companies by finding them export markets; they also assist foreign companies in investing in Sweden.

Half of Business Sweden is owned by Sweden’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the other half belongs to the Swedish Foreign Trade Association (a private company). The Budapest office has been operational since 1971. The Embassy of Sweden, Business Sweden and the Swedish Chamber of Commerce work in close cooperation to support Swedish businesses and to foster trade and investment in Hungary and Sweden. //