Many curious about future business opportunities

They came to hear about upcoming procurements that the County Council will conduct in infrastructure. During the Supplier day, the new Metro’s 30 or so contracts were presented. The Traffic Administration was also on hand to tell about some of their major infrastructure projects.

“This way, we were able to introduce ourselves to a large part of the industry at the same time. It’s especially important since we will soon begin our procurements,” says Pia Lindberg-Nedby, Metro Procurement Manager, who was very pleased with the day.

The same was true of Anna Nylén, Project Manager for the Metro extension to Barkarby and the one who will be the first to begin construction, directly after the summer of 2018.

“It was really enjoyable to introduce ourselves to so many potential contractors and from the questions I got, you could tell there is a huge amount of interest in being involved in building the Metro,” says Anna Nylén.

Large mix of companies
Many of the visitors represented companies that are already in Sweden and Stockholm, but several were also there to plan for a future establishment in the region, such as a couple of Chinese governmental railway companies who were in Stockholm to investigate the possibility of being involved in building infrastructure in Sweden. Per Englund works for an American company about to establish a Scandinavian branch. 

“For us, Sweden is very interesting. Sweden is a very ethical country to do business in. This is important for us; we’re on the top-100 list of companies that do ethical business of all of the countries in the world,” he says.

Among other things, his company was involved in building the metro in Dublin and high-speed railways in Malaysia, California and the UK.

Interesting region
Invest Stockholm, which works to make it easier for companies to establish business in the region, had a lot to do during the day.

“We had a line of people waiting at our stand who wanted to come and talk with us. We know that interest in our region is huge. There is a lot under way that is to be built and we often get questions about the Metro,” explains Erik Krüger from Invest Stockholm.

The fact that Stockholm is growing and many investments are approved or planned makes it interesting to work in the Stockholm region, according to many of the visitors. 

“We first became interested in the Eastern Link, then we realised how much was on the way in the Stockholm region,” says John McSheen from a British firm. 

“Stockholm is in an incredibly expansive phase, above all with the Sweden Negotiation, involving commitments with housing, commercial premises and infrastructure. Development is moving towards less travel by car and more public transport and bicycling, so it’s a really exciting region that is developing into a more sustainable society,” says Lovisa Johnsson from Stockholm.