- Sweden: According to the INVEST IN SWEDEN AGENCY (ISA), Sweden has for the past ten years enjoyed substantial growth in foreign investment on its territory. One of the factors at the origin of this growth is a national economy that is resolutely geared to the new technologies which offer foreign investors an enormous potential. Since the early nineties, the flows of foreign direct investment went through a continued rise, allowing the country to rank sixth, between 1995 and 1999, among recipient countries (after the United States, the United Kingdom, China, France and the Netherlands), in absolute figures. Most investors, in decreasing order, are British, American, German and Scandinavian and their choice goes to the pharmaceutical and automobile sectors as well as towards the new information technologies (IT), which is a growing phenomenon. The Swedish Employers Confederation (SAF) and the Swedish Enterprise Federation (Industriförbundet) cite, moreover, the "new economy" as a fundamental factor in the economic recovery of the country. Many traditional Swedish companies have understood the importance of this new challenge and have introduced information technology techniques at every stage of production with, as a result, a growth and improvement in their productivity and a more successful after-sales service. AB B (turnover SEK 23 billion in 2000 with 50 companies and 18,000 employed), an industrial giant of the "old economy", is a typical example of the change of mentality under way, and now gears its strategy to the e-business. The telecommunications company ERICSSON (turnover SEK 292.3 billion in 2000 with 105,000 employed), another flagship of the Swedish economy, has for its part provided the ground needed for the establishment and the development of new start-ups, the results of which vouch for its good health. Set up in the towns of Kista and Karlskrona, which already host certain ERICSSON infrastructures, they have not stopped ramifying to give rise to the Swedish "Silicon Valley", a region previously devastated by unemployment but which today embodies the country's technological success. A university specialised in IT has since opened there and is preparing to welcome no less than 10,000 Swedish students as well as foreign students in order to train tomorrow's managers. After the fashion of its Scandinavian neighbours, Sweden is today counting on the new technologies to guarantee the prosperity of its economy and should continue to attract foreign investment by offering ideal infrastructure in this sector, highly qualified staff and also flexible legislation.