Swedish retail giant IKEA is scouting for locations in Tamil Nadu to establish its presence in the State. Its representatives are part of a large Swedish delegation that is on a visit to the State, said Jan Thesleff, Ambassador of Sweden to India.

IKEA is expanding all over India and looking at Tamil Nadu, he said in an interaction with journalists of The Hindu Group on Wednesday. The furniture major has been sourcing items from India since 1986, even before it established a presence in Hyderabad in 2018, he added.

IKEA has set up retail stores in Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Mumbai.

Thesleff said some of the other Swedish companies that are pursuing or looking at Tamil Nadu and part of the delegation were Trelleborg Marine, SAAB and Camfil.

There are some other companies that are establishing new plants in the State. There will be two inaugurations - Scandinavia Robot Systems and Jacobi - in Coimbatore in January on 21 and 22 of January, he said.

Large delegation

In the delegation, there were representatives from 15 universities looking to recruit talent; wooing talent interested in pursuing postgraduate studies in Sweden; looking to tap those who want to build a career and looking at research cooperation - like the one with IIT Madras.

Thesleff said the total number of Swedish companies in TN is around 70, employing about 25,000 people. “We are not happy with this. We want to do more,” he said.

On Tuesday,, the delegation met Tamil Nadu Industries Minister TRB Rajaa..

Only Tamil Nadu

This time, the delegation is visiting only Tamil Nadu, which already has 70 Swedish companies. This is nearly 22 per cent of the total number of Swedish companies that have chosen to come here. “So, this was an obvious choice for us to come,” he said.

On the political side things are expanding with India. On the economic side, two companies are establishing themselves every month in India; 280,000 Indians working directly for Swedish companies; 2.5 million indirectly and a lot of investments from Sweden into Indian companies - not Swedish companies coming here but buying equity into Indian companies. EQT is one of the biggest investors in India, having in their companies 180,000 employees only for one company. One owner has many different companies, he said.

To a question on bilateral trade ($6 billion), the Ambassador said, “Am I happy with the trade figures? The answer is of course never happy with the trade figures. We can do much with it here and that’s what we are. That’s what we are working on and that’s what we are doing.”

India’s pull factor

“I have served in many countries before and usually you have to convince people to go to a certain market to be interested in doing this. However, with India, people contact us. People are proactive. You have a completely different pull factor for India that is working in India’s favour. We already now see increasing trade volumes, but trade is changing. People are establishing themselves here. Companies are establishing here to cater for the Indian market and for regional markets around India,” he said.

China Plus One

On China Plus One, Thesleff said, “People talk about China Plus One but I am not really in favour of that. For many companies, China is very important and for many companies will probably remain very important.”

Companies are diversifying, and are going into different markets depending on their business and depending on where they can either source or find the right skills or the right environment. Right now, many Swedish companies are not only looking at India, but actually going into India, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they leave other markets. They are still in other markets, he said.

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