Patrons
The austere years of the Fifties were just behind us, gradually people started to allow themselves some luxury goods. TV sets were becoming more and more common. The European Economic Community (EEC) was only 4 years old and consisted of the six member countries of ‘the first hour’. People blamed occasional heavy rainfall on the ‘A-bomb’ and the cold war would soon enter a new episode with the incident in the Bay of Pigs and the construction of the Berlin Wall. Sweden would still drive for seven years on the left, although the decision to move to the right was already final.
At the invitation of the ambassador of Sweden at that time, Sven Dahlman, a number of executives of Swedish companies in the Netherlands convened at the Swedish Embassy in The Hague on 14 February 1960 to discuss the future of Swedish-Dutch trade relations. With hindsight this meeting was the very beginning of the Chamber, which would formally be established on 12 May 1960 as the ‘Vereniging Zweeds-Nederlandse Kamer van Koophandel en Industrie’. Cees Sollart of Sandvik Staal N.V. acted as the first Chairperson of the Chamber.
From the Sixties through the Eighties the membership was as yet predominantly Swedish. Companies were still actively using expatriates to manage their plants and subsidiaries abroad, which meant that there was a large contingent of Swedish managers in the Netherlands regularly frequenting the activities of the Chamber. With modern communication means further developing and cost drives also reaching the senior management levels, Swedish companies followed the global trend and hired more and more locals for senior positions in their foreign subsidiaries. The trend towards ‘Dutchification’ of the membership was further intensified in later years, when Dutch firms, in particular from within the service industry, ‘discovered’ the liberalizing Swedish market and joined the Chamber to broaden their networks.
The second wave of ‘Swedishness’ came with the Swedish property investment boom in the Netherlands at the end of the Eighties. With low interest rates and booming real estate prices in Sweden, many Swedish real estate investors had been very successful in the Swedish market and were looking for expansion abroad. A more relaxed policy on international capital transfers facilitated foreign investments. It was not only Lars Magnusson, who entered the Dutch real estate market, many more Swedish property investors followed. But as fast as they came, so quickly did they leave, not seldom with substantial losses, as soon as the Riksbank steeply increased the interest rates in order to protect the Swedish crown.
We also remember the third wave, the IT boom, which is not too long ago. At the end of the Nineties, many Swedish Information and Communication Technology companies, which then belonged to the most advanced in the world in their industry, also came to the Netherlands and started subsidiaries or took over local companies. Although hit by the subsequent IT crisis in 2000, quite a few survived and became successful in the Dutch market.
The Conference ‘a Day of Visions’, organized at the assocasion of the 40th Anniversary of the Chamber. Program, speakers and festivities were toprated and we owe much respect for the organizational drive of Olle Werner, who was then the Chairperson of the Board of the Chamber.
The 50th Anniversary of the Chamber was celebrated on 28 October 2010 in the Hotels of Orange in Noordwijk. The programme started with a conference on Innovation & Sustainability in the presence of Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden and with a list of prominent speakers. A royal gala evening with Princess Victoria and Willem-Alexander, then still Prince of Orange, as guests of honour concluded the anniversary celebrations. The highlight of the evening was undoubtedly the moment when Princess Victoria honoured Ingvar Kamprad (then 84), founder of IKEA, with the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Swedish Chamber of Commerce in the Netherlands.
In 2014 the anniversary of 400 years of diplomatic relations between Sweden and the Netherlands was celebrated. During the Royal Visit in April 2014 the Chamber organized a seminar on Innovation and Growth. King Carl XVI Gustav of Sweden and King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands both attended the seminar, during which the King of Sweden awarded the Swedish Chamber Export Prize to SKF, the Swedish multinational celebrating its 100th anniversary of its presence in the Netherlands.
In both Sweden and the Netherlands, the start-up sector is booming. Stockholm and Amsterdam based start-up activities are both ranked top 20 globally. During the high-level Startup Summit, organized by the Chamber in 2018, speakers discussed the factors behind the thriving start-up sectors in both countries, and how a long-term collaboration can lead to an even better performance. Prince Daniel of Sweden and Prince Constantijn of the Netherlands honoured the event and shared their views with the audience on the importance of start-ups and what the countries can learn from each other. The two princes were invited because of their engagement in entrepreneurship and start-ups. Prince Daniel is committed to promote entrepreneurship among young people, amongst others through the project Prince Daniel’s Fellowship. The idea behind the project is to inspire young people to become entrepreneurs and to support ambitious young entrepreneurs in growing their business. Prince Constantijn is Special Envoy at Techleap.NL (formerly StartupDelta), located in the Epicenter in Amsterdam, the accelerator for the start-up environment in the Netherlands, and advises companies and the European Commission on their digital innovation strategies.
The Swedish Chamber of Commerce celebrated its 60th Anniversary in the Netherlands with an Innovation & Sustainability Summit in the afternoon moderated by Patrick Mesterton, CEO Epicenter Stockholm, at Hotel Okura Amsterdam.
HRH Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden gave the opening keynote, followed by top speakers from both Sweden and the Netherlands. Royal Gala Dinner was welcoming +300 guests to celebrate the Swedish Chamber’s 60th Anniversary and the prosperous relationship between Sweden and the Netherlands.
At the dinner, HRH Crown Princess handed out the Swedish Chamber Entrepreneurship Award to Lynk & Co, the Achievement Award to Inter IKEA Systems and the Tech for Good Award to Ericsson. The Swedish Chamber of Commerce congratulates the recipients of the Swedish Chamber Business Awards 2021. The Swedish Chamber of Commerce would also like to thank our Keynote speaker Per Heggenes, CEO of IKEA Foundation, for his inspiring dinner speech. The Swedish-based Dutch artist Kim-Lian van der Meij hosted the evening and gave a fantastic musical show. 