Från Sweden.se
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With an insufficient domestic market, major Swedish companies were "forced" right from the start to invest in exporting to customers worldwide. In many cases, this early globalization is regarded as having given Swedish companies a leg up in international competition - one reason why
Sweden today has an extremely large number of multinational corporations and brands for its modest population. Volvo, Saab, Ericsson, ABB, AstraZeneca, Electrolux, IKEA, H&M, Hasselblad and Absolut are only a few of these Swedish-rooted companies and brands.
Although raw materials and processed raw materials still account for a sizable proportion of Swedish exports, the future of Swedish business is said to lie primarily in knowledge-intensive industries, where Sweden can take advantage of its advanced technological development, sophisticated infrastructure and high general educational level. Information technology (IT) and biomedicine are two such knowledge-intensive sectors in which Sweden has been among the global leaders for years.