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Swedish alcohol monopoly pulls Russian products from shelves

Sweden's alcohol monopoly has decided to stop selling all vodka and other types of Russian alcohol in protest at the country's invasion of Ukraine.

Published: 28 February 2022 19:52 CET

The Russian vodka brand Stolichnaya on sale in a branch of Systembolaget in Sweden. The vodka on the right is not from Russia. Photo: Janerik Henriksson/TT

The decision from Systembolaget, which came only hours after Alko, its Finnish equivalent announced a similar move, will apply with immediate effect.

“Put simply, this is because of Russia’s invasion and that the attack will mean great suffering for the Ukrainian people,” Ulf Sjödin, the company’s Head of Category Management, told the TT newswire. “I wouldn’t say it was a protest, more just a natural consequence.”

In a press statement, the company said that it agreed with Sweden’s government that the attack “violates Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty”, “will mean great suffering for the Ukrainian people”, and is “a clear crime under international law”.

Systembolaget has three Russian products on its shelves, and 30 more which can be specially ordered.

Sjödin said the two Russian vodka brands together made up less than one percent of the company’s sales of spirits.

He said that the company would resume sales of Russian products if the situation in Ukraine improves.

Alko said that it had taken the decision for similar reasons, adding that consumer demands for Russian-made products had already dropped following the invasion last Thursday.

READ ALSO: Volvo suspends production and sales of cars in Russia

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India among top investment destinations for Swedish companies

“The stars are aligned for India. They have got a lot of internal investment programmes started, have acquired internal stability and managed to navigate the geopolitical situation in such a way that no one has any doubts any longer,” said Business Sweden CEO Jan Larsson.

Swedish businesses are in general less optimistic than last year about the global business scene, due to a struggling European economy and escalating trade wars between the US and China, according to a new Global Business Climate Survey 2024 by Business Sweden.

Despite this, many of the 24 countries in the report maintained a generally positive outlook, with scores over 3 on a 5-point scale, where 1 equals very poor and 5 very good.

Overall, just six percent of respondents perceived the business climate as very good, 31 percent as good, 45 percent as neutral, 15 percent as poor and 2 percent as very poor.

There are also some markets where sentiment has improved slightly since last year: Brazil, South Africa, South Korea, the UK and Spain.

At the other end of the scale, interest in investing in giant markets such as China and Germany appears to be on the wane, along with Taiwan and Mexico.

“Doing business in Germany comes with a lot of administrative work compared to Sweden, which is time consuming and costly,” EWAB Engineering GmbH managing director Fredrik Almcrantz said in the report. “Digitalisation doesn’t replace paperwork related to compliance with rules and regulations, it is just an added layer on top of traditional routines.”

Almost a third (65 percent) of Swedish businesses surveyed expect revenue to grow and plan to increase their global investments in the year ahead. A clear majority (70 percent) of companies were profitable last year, while 12 percent reached break-even and 13 percent reported negative results.

The Netherlands and France had the highest percentage of profitable Swedish companies, while the highest share of companies making a loss were reported in South Korea and Germany.

India, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia are among the countries on the list identified as having the most favourable business climates for Swedish companies, while Germany, Mexico and the Netherlands were rated lowest on the list.

India, Brazil and Indonesia also had the highest share of companies saying that the Swedish brand contributes “to an extent or great extent” to their success in those markets. At the other end of the scale were the United States, Canada and Saudi Arabia.

“In the Indonesian market, Swedish products are generally considered to be high quality, robust and durable,” said M. Syahrul Mohideen, area sales manager at ScanBox Thermoproducts AB.

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