Today it is our national day, 6th of June. 10 million people celebrates our country.
National Day celebrations in our capital, Stockholm
We are proud of our country, a trading nation known for peace, equality and solidarity. No other nation in the world contributes more per capita than Sweden to the fight against poverty through aid and development support. In addition no country in the European Union has welcomed more refugees per capita than our country.
The Swedish Royal Family celebrates the National Day at Öland, the island in the Baltic Sea where they have their summer residence
This is in our DNA, a hundred and fifty years ago we were very poor country and more than one third of the population had to emigrate to America to avoid starvation. We remember where we come from.
Congratulations Sweden
We are vikings, trading people and a nation of innovators. People and grest innovators like Alfred Nobel (dynamite), Sven Wingquist (bearings), Christopher Polhem (the padlock), Nils Bohlin (the seatbelt), Johan Petter Johanson (the wrench), Gustaf de Laval (the steam turbin) just to mention some, shaped our country.
Today Swedish internet stars like Niklas Zennström (Skype), Daniel Ek (Spotify) and Marcus Notch Persson (Minecraft) are important players in the new digital economy.
Sweden is also a beautiful land with fresh air and water and a facinating landscape.
A country with many faces
I always say that we have the most beautiful capital city in the world, Stockholm. Located on 35.000 islands in an archepelago.
Stockholm
Another special feature is the Northern Lights that paints our sky in wintertime.
Northern lights
People from Sweden love sports. Our favourite sports are; football (soccer), icehockey, handball, skiing (cross country/downhill), tennis and golf.
Our biggest sports star (by far) is soccer player Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Ibra, my hero
Congratulations Sweden, the land of hope and dreams. I am proud of you.
Sweden arranged the 2nd WCO Europe Regional WorkShop on implementation of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement in Stockholm this week.
Joakim Reiter, Deputy Secretary General of UNCTAD spoke at the opening of the workshop
During two days Trade Facilitation was in the center of the discussion between representatives from forty countries, European Union, WCO, UNCTAD, WorldBank and a wide range of other organizations.
Another of the high-level speakers at the Conference was Mr. Antonis Kastrissianakis from the EU Commission, Taxud.
We know that trade is what develops our societies. There are many examples. Customs and border agencies are vital leaders and key players in how our borders are managed and monitored.
Customs is watching over and controlling our borders while we are sleeping, working and living our lives. Customs are always there to keep us safe, 24/7 all days of the year, decade after decade. And have been for centuries.
So how do we handle the fact that we live in the age of globalization, in a turbolent world of crises?
Just the last decade we have had security crises, safety crises, commodity prize crises, global financial crises, political crises and now a refugee crise. And we we are just in the beginning of this era. There will be more.
The answer is trade facilitation. We need to design, develop and implement smart, risk based systems and programmes to monitor the international trade supply chain in totally new ways. Global trade will bring us together and develop our economies. However it needs to be done in a transparent way where all countries have fair market access. We need to make it work this time.
Like in every development there is (as always) good news and bad news. The bad news is that it will be worse before it gets better.
The good news is that we know how to do it, now we just have to do it on the ground instead of only talking about it. And we will.
The Wall Street fictionary charachter Gordon Gecco (played by Michael Douglas) once said that ‘greed is good’. I think it is not. But Trade Facilitation is.
So it is time to launch a new paradigm, the New Trade Facilitation Model – with responsible simplifications and facilitation systems solving the challanges for all stakeholders.
We have the instruments, we have the experience – today we know how to do efficient capacity building and implementation.
The future belongs to the optimists.
A UAE businessman bought a car registration plate bearing just the number ‘one’ at an auction. The car plste number was sold for AED18m (£3.4m).
The winning bidder, Emirati businessman Arif Ahmed al-Zarouni, told Gulf News: “My ambition is always to be number one”, UK Newspaper The Guardian reports.
I really like this vision and ambition that I often meet in United Arab Emirates. The wish to be the best. This is an important driver of development.
You can read the entire article here (click on the link): Number One
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