Scandinavian supplier association, FKG, is urging a “cross-functional” approach to the Swedish domestic sector as it looks to potentially establish an equivalent of the UK Automotive Council that is currently presiding over a boom period for the British industry.
Sweden has no formal body in place yet to match the automotive council, with the FKG stressing the need for the pace to quicken if such an organisation was created to drive its domestic sector.
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“Sometimes it can take too much time to get through what we really need,” FKG chairman, Per-Ewe Wendel, told just-auto today (10 October) on the sidelines of his organisation’s annual suppliers forum in Gothenburg.
“Like now, we have discussed this automotive council like the one in the UK. They [government] have looked at it and have said it is a good idea, but it is hard to take the next step.
“The [government] answer is we are spending a lot of money in Sweden – this is an answer I can have from the politicians. This is right and in another way, wrong. It is not a money question – more of a way of how the money is distributed and how we are working together.”
Wendel underlined the FKG wanted a”cross-functional” approach to its domestic industry, much as the UK Automotive Council draws together many disciplines in a bid to make ‘UK PLC’ as it was referred to recently at the SMMT’s supplier day, the focus of attention, rather than individual companies.
“In the UK, you have decided what is important – [you say] ‘what are we good at?'” said Wendel. How should we build up that and how should we secure the future?”
The FKG chairman added the Swedish government was increasingly “starting to understand” the importance of the auto sector for the country, while stressing the need for younger people to see engineering as an attractive career choice.
“We have a hard time to make young people take the step and choice of a technical education,” he said.
“It starts at school, but to make the message, to tell people the industry is a sexy industry and give it a little more glamour.”
