Sri Lankan Embassy opens digital doors to business

Last week, the Embassy of Sri Lanka was supposed to visit the Gothenburg region and meet politicians, government officials and companies. However, due to the Covid-19 virus, the visit was cancelled and shifted to a digital meeting where a regional company and Business Region Göteborg joined.

– This meeting was proof that Green Gothenburg and Smart City Sweden also can communicate contacts and market knowledge digitally, and thus still facilitate international business. Digital meetings are of course positive from a climate point of view and hopefully, unnecessary trips can be avoided in the future, says Sofia Mc Conell, Head of Green Gothenburg and Smart City Sweden West.

The region of Gothenburg is in dire need of ICT-competence, and one of the growing Tech-hubs are Colombo, Sri Lanka, therefor it was positive that the meeting could be held in any case. The Embassy of Sri Lanka in Stockholm see that there is great potential for Swedish companies in Sri Lanka. Especially interesting are areas such as ICT, smart city solutions and cleantech. Numerous Sri Lankan ICT-companies are currently working together with leading Swedish companies, such as Nelly.com, based in Borås. We have, the last few years here at Business Region Göteborg, been working in the company of the Sri Lankan Embassy in Sweden, as well as with the general secretary of the Sweden-Sri Lanka Business council, Leif Ohlson.

– I work plenty towards spreading information and to make Swedish companies realize that Sri Lanka is a great backdoor into the South Asian market, thanks to the many FTA:s (free trade agreement) present in the country. We were visited last autumn by Swedish startups, which will establish in Sri Lanka to later move onto the Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi export market. There is a lot of construction going on, and we need to see more Swedish tech companies, perhaps in the fields of health or organically produced foods, says Leif Ohlson.

– Do not hesitate to contact Green Gothenburg if you have inquiries from customer contacts who are looking for information on environmental solutions in our region. Thanks to the cooperation with Smart City Sweden we can also get help from Swedish governmental agencies who can share their knowledge, says Sofia Mc Conell.

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