the supply offered to consumers and companies can benefit persson, m. and m. radetzki, " china, sweden and globalisation ”, ekonomisk debatt 1, 2006. bigsten, a. and b. holmlund, ” exaggerated fears of the threat from china ”, ekonomisk debatt 2, 2006 from economies of scale in their production. there are many indications that the trade with china and the other rapidly - growing economies are developing in this direction. how will sweden meet the challenges? so far, it appears as though sweden has managed the structural transformation well, although some groups and regions may experience negative effects during a transitional period. the swedish institute for growth policy studies ( itps ) demonstrates in a study that swedish - owned industrial companies which increased the number of their employees in low - wage countries during the 1990s at the same time showed an increased demand for labour force with higher education back home in sweden. this is in line with the development that has taken place in the united states and the united kingdom. according to the swedish labour market administration ’ s figures on redundancy notification and itps ’ s media monitoring, few jobs moved abroad as a result of companies transferring their operations abroad during 2005. in total, the number of jobs was 2, 000 - 4, 000, of which 1, 500 involved a move to another eu country. the major challenge for the future lies not in the number of jobs moving abroad, but in managing the transition required to make it possible to create new jobs as new employment is created mainly in other countries / regions. this requires a good corporate climate, a good capacity to attract knowledge and capital and an ability to transform, including flexibility in the labour market so that employees can apply to new sectors and areas as smoothly as possible. if this is not successful, there is a risk of growing structural unemployment. at the time of the extensive structural transformation in the 1970s, the public sector took in many of the new entrants on the labour market and those who lost their jobs. this possibility is no longer available to the same extent. instead, it is the private service sector that will have to expand. in a sparsely - populated country like sweden, however, labour market matching can be particularly problematic as many service companies require proximity to population centres in order to be profitable. a key issue in future will be how we can attract capital to invest in sweden. regarded in this perspective, the falling investment ratio

in the right direction. 9 after that, an agreement was reached at the ims spring meeting to reinforce the imf ’ s resources with usd 430 billion for lending to crisis - torn countries. building up these financial “ firewalls ” is an important step in creating confidence in the financial system. there is often impatience with regard to the sluggishness of the political processes dealing with type of problems we are now seeing in the euro area. but the different steps that have been gradually taken on a political level should, as i see it, be able to alleviate a confidence crisis that is largely political. this would point to an orderly resolution of the euro crisis. it then remains to be seen whether the crisis flaring up around greece now can have more farreaching consequences. in a worried, nervous climate even a problem that only affects one small country can have contagion effects. could things go better than we are forecasting? i have earlier listed various downside risks. are there any conditions under which growth might be better than we are forecasting? my assessment is that this is the case, although things look uncertain right now and we cannot expect any rapid improvements. i think it is worth pointing out that we only expect a cautious recovery in growth in the euro area from the end of 2012 and onwards. what we are now seeing is a confidence crisis of gigantic proportions, but it also means that if political measures can build up confidence step by step, the economy in the euro area can recover with greater force than we are predicting. as i mentioned earlier, there are countries in the euro area with good fundamental conditions for a stronger recovery. in the united states there are good conditions for a better outcome. in this situation growth can be somewhat stronger than the fairly modest growth we are predicting. particularly if housing construction picks up again, after several years of adjustment. the driving force behind growth can be very strong, as earlier economic upswings have shown. the situation in sweden – some positive signs what is the situation in sweden? the weak growth abroad at the end of last year led to an unexpectedly severe slowdown in swedish exports. this means that the fall in gdp growth in the fourth quarter of last year was larger than we had predicted. the weak year - end has an impact on gdp growth for 2012, which was revised down in april in relation to the forecast made in february. at first glance, the gdp figure may appear ominous. but unlike exports, domestic demand during the