* Indian telecom startup company,

Vihaan Networks chose Sweden to conceptualise, design and engineer solar powered GSM equipments.

* Biocon performed clinical trials for its oral insulin at Karolinska Institutet medical university.

Clearly, Indian companies are logging into Sweden to tap into their ?scientific infrastructure?. Encouraged, ?Invest in Sweden??a Swedish government agency working under the ministry of foreign affairs?is setting up an office in India, its first outside the US, China and Japan.

Indian IT, communications, life science and clean tech firms seem to be high on the priority list of Sweden, which attracts the world?s second largest per capita investments in R&D. ?We expect to grow investments from India in a big way as we set a direct presence here. ICT and life science sectors are likely to account for about half of the total investments from India while clean technologies could also see a fast growth,? says Per-Erik Sandlund,president and director-general of Invest in Sweden Agency (ISA).

ISA claims to be in discussions with several Indian companies, looking to replicate the models adopted by Biocon and Shyam group?s Vihaan Networks. Its confidence seems to come from the fact that Sweden ranks fourth on the Global Competitiveness Index of World Economic Forum (WEF) and is also rated among the top five countries for international trade, making it an investment hotspot. It is home to the world?s leading operators in areas such as cleantech, ICT, life sciences, automotive and materials sciences.

Already, almost all Indian IT companies have set up a base in Sweden. These include TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Mahindra Satyam. ?Though it is hard to comment on revenue and number of employees of the Indian players in Sweden, TCS has talked about 80 Nordic clients which engage over 2,000 TCS consultants,? says ISA manager, information and communication technologies (ICT) sector Tomas Sokolnicki. Hot investment areas include communications systems, mobile terminal software, industrial IT, GIS (geographical information systems), visualisation and datacentres.

Sokolnicki has drawn a three-pronged strategy to attract more investments from the ICT sector. Firstly, Sweden is being promoted as the global centre of excellence for R&D in areas such as next generation telecom solutions (eg LTE), visualisation or vehicle telematics/infotainment, industrial IT. This will not only build credibility in the Nordic market, but also provide strengthened capabilities for global projects. He is also working on strengthening the Nordic position on the consulting and offshoring market by acquiring or partnering with one of the Swedish consultancies, thus being able to leverage the increasing trend for outsourcing. A strong Nordic presence also provides an entry point into the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe, according to him. Thirdly, Indian companies could acquire technologies or intellectual property for application in India and on the global market. These could be in mobile and wireless platforms and applications, wireless broadband,telematics,embeddedtechnologies, solutions for production and manufacturing, multimedia convergence (IPTV, mobile TV and visualisation).

Indian life science companies like Biocon, Wockardt, Zydus Cadila, Ranbaxy, Kenwell Pharma and Syngene are also getting active in Sweden. Biocon, for instance, has partnered with the Karolinska Institutet (KI) medical university that selects and awards the Nobel Prize for medicine and physiology for R&D. It has also performed clinical trials for their oral insulin at KI. ?Swedish life science clusters rank among the best in the world and Sweden is also rated as the number one country in innovation,? says CB Sanjeevi, associate professor at KI and business unit head, Life Sciences, ISA India.

He is quick to point out the recent collaboration between research institutes in the two countries for tuberculosis, malaria, HIV, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. He seems to be banking on Sweden?s track record in conducting clinical trials and low-cost portable devices that can be useful in India?s rural markets. Many more Indian companies, according to him, are scouting for research partnerships in Sweden.

Sweden is also emerging as a chosen place to launch tech products. ?Studies show that a high-tech product can be tested, piloted and launched in the Swedish market in four years and it would take six years to do the same in Europe.This is clearly a big plus for tech companies, where time to market is crucial,? insists Per-Erik Sandlund.