Transcript of Doorstop Interview by President Tharman Shanmugaratnam in Gothenburg, Sweden on 21 October 2026

Question 1: Sweden is geographically distant from Singapore. Why is Singapore looking to deepen its relationship with Sweden, and what can the two countries offer each other in areas such as business, education, entrepreneurship and investment?

Question 2: From what you have seen during this visit, including your visit to unicorns like Spotify, is there anything that Singapore could learn from in terms of innovation or doing things differently?

Question 3: As competition over advanced technologies like AI intensifies, why is closer collaboration with countries like Sweden important for Singapore? Where do you see opportunities for Singapore and Sweden to work together in emerging technologies?

President Tharman Shanmugaratnam: It's been a productive State Visit. We’ve had, extensive conversations with Their Majesties King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia, who take a very close interest in their society, and very useful interactions with leaders in government and business, as well as philanthropies and the NGO sector.

Beyond the formal agreements, there's something else that has been developing between Sweden and Singapore.

We have through our multiple relationships going back 60 years, developed a relationship of trust. The relationships started especially in defence technology, moved on to different areas of R&D, now energy collaboration, and we’ve been working closely in education. But what matters now is we trust each other. That helps greatly, as we go forward in difficult world.

There are similarities between Singapore and Sweden that are quite obvious.

Like us, and more so than their peers in Europe, they take a long view. They take a long view within their companies, and the government itself has a long view of where they want Sweden to be, and they try to work to get there with their companies and people. That's also the approach we take in Singapore.

We also obviously know we are both relatively small economies, and know that we have to keep building alliances, creating space for ourselves internationally.

Yet there are also some things we can learn from Sweden, and there are some things which they feel they can learn from us.

There is always something more to learn from Sweden. Start with their corporate culture and success in growing companies. Sweden has both very established, long-standing companies that are world leaders. ABB, Scania, the Volvo Group, many others, as well as a thriving startup culture.

They have the one of the highest proportions of business unicorns in the world relative to population size; a population of just 10 million, but a profusion of unicorns. The question is how they created this. We've had many conversations with their business leaders and entrepreneurs. There are a few common themes.

First, Swedish business leaders talk about how their corporate culture has evolved: from one that used to involve quite transactional relationships with each other towards a collaborative culture.

Employees from successful startups have gone on to found their own companies, and successful founders have gone on to invest in other companies. They have become a community, a dense community of entrepreneurs who support each other.

That dense community of entrepreneurs they have created is quite impressive. It involves collaboration, it involves mentorship, and it involves investing in each other.

Second, their government takes a view, much like ours, that it has to play a role in enabling companies to grow and to compete internationally. They do it not by intruding in corporate strategy, but by having a predictable regulatory environment and helping to promote their companies internationally. The businesses were very clear about the advantages of that government role.

There is a third reason. The Swedes, more than most other countries in Europe, have a strong system of funding for emerging enterprises. They have a thriving angel investor community, partly because of changes in tax laws 20 years ago. It feeds on itself, as angel investors who succeed in their investments recycle their gains into investments into the next set of start-ups.

Individuals in Sweden, too, invest to a larger extent in equities compared to the rest of Europe, where people keep most of their money in bank deposits.

So they've developed a strong funding ecosystem for start-ups and growth enterprises, and feel it has been a real plus for them – that strong early-stage investment community, followed by private equity, and VC funding.

These are things which are not new to us. We have our own aspirations in start-up funding, and there’s something to learn from Sweden.

A second area of similarity between Singapore and Sweden, and where there's something we can learn from each other, is the way they try and make sure everyone comes along.

The Swedes are proud of what they call their ‘horizontal’ culture – a strong egalitarian culture. Yet they’ve been able produce individuals and entrepreneurs who set very ambitious goals for themselves, and been able to create their unicorns. Not everyone is like that of course, but they've been able to keep that balance.

We visited Fryshuset, the non-profit organisation that helps youth from all backgrounds, including those with difficulties in life, to gain confidence, develop themselves and feel that they play a role in society.

That's what we seek to do in Singapore as well. They are deeply committed to wanting everyone to move up together, and I think we can learn from each other in this area too.

For the same reason, their companies work closely with their unions. They have a long-standing culture of business- union collaboration – not just wage bargaining, but increasingly about how much the company should invest in its workers.

They are working out strategies so that even if not every job remains the same, people are taken care of. The large corporates are able to redeploy people within their own companies; smaller ones often help people move on somewhere else. That's also what we seek to do in Singapore, and where we can learn from each other.

So it’s been a productive visit, not just because of the agreements we are moving along on – in energy, in AI, in quantum, in 6G, in material science and other areas – but also because of the way in which we are continuing to learn from each other in our approach to keeping society together, in being competitive, and expanding possibilities for ourselves in a world that's more difficult than before.