Sweden keen on India's smart city projects

Fourteen Swedish companies, including the famed Volvo Group, are showcasing their technologies at the three-day Smart City Expo here concluding on Friday.

Sweden is the official partner country at the expo.

"The embassy of Sweden and Business Sweden in India are participating with a number of ministries of the government of India for Smart Cities India 2015," the Swedish embassy said in a statement here.

Inaugurating Sweden's pavilion, Swedish ambassador Harald Sandberg said: "Sweden can assist by bringing the best Swedish technologies in key areas like energy efficiency, smart grids, traffic safety and transport, information and communication, water supply and sanitation, waste management and urban planning among others."

"Sweden has 'SymbioCity', the trademarked term for Sweden's approach to sustainable urban development, which can provide a blueprint for the smart city concept. Sweden can undertake pilot projects to assist India to develop favourable policies," he added.

The participating companies are Blueair, Cale Access, Cleanmotion, Clima Check, Envac, Form Consult, FOV Biogas, HiNation, Mimer Energy, NeoZeo, Opcon, Scania, Volvo Cars and Volvo Group.

A senior Swedish official told reporters here on Wednesday that Sweden is keen to partner with Indian companies to build smart cities through public-private partnership (PPP) in states like Karnataka, Telangana and Maharashtra.

"Rather than adopting cities in India, we will work on actual PPP model, wherein we will bring in Swedish expertise and world class state-of-the-art knowledge and investment," said Anna Liberg, Trade Commissioner to India, Business Sweden India and South Asia.

Early signing of a pending memorandum of understanding (MOU) on an urban development framework between the two countries is expected to facilitate greater collaboration, she added.

"There are 150 Swedish companies in India and the number is growing. A considerable number of them is in the field of urban development under the umbrella of smart cities. We are very strong in that," the Swedish official said.

The India-Sweden two-way trade in 2014-15 was worth nearly $2.4 billion.

--Indo-Asian news service

bc/vip/vt