Building long term strategies and public-private alliances for export development: the Swedish case

The paper describes the Swedish economic process, which displayed the second fastest growth rates in the world during hundred years, followed by three decades of economic stagnation and its recovery in the last decade. The author recognizes four sequential stages in the economic transformation of the country: 1) Resource driven economy, 2) Investment driven economy, 3) Service driven economy and, 4) a Knowledge driven economy. The successful transformation was built on a small number of industries and large firms in close cooperation with the public sector. However, although currently characterized by a knowledge economy, the "Swedish Paradox" is that the return on R&D investments in terms of growth is very low. The report states that a main factor to address this challenge is to align public and private research strategies and cooperation, based on a much broader and systemic innovation system. Tentatively, for Lain America there are at least three lessons that can be learned: 1) Competitiveness requires long-term capacity building, 2) Constructive dialogues on internationalization and innovation and, 3) Leveraging opportunities for change.