Most Improved Country: Procurement

Sweden has undertaken reforms to the principal legislations that regulate public procurement in the country, which has resulted in Sweden’s 48 rank increase on procurement measures in InfraCompass.

In late 2016, in an effort to develop the public procurement law framework, the Swedish Government introduced the following reforms:

• Public Procurement Act (2016) – governs public procurement by contracting authorities • Utilities Procurement Act (2016) – governs the procurement procedure of entities operating in the water, energy, transport and postal services sector
• Concessions Procurement Act (2016) – governs the procurement of building concessions and services concessions by contracting authorities.

These acts entered into force in 2017, and would not yet have been reflected in the data underlying InfraCompass 2017.

Additionally, in late 2017, the Swedish Government adopted the National Public Procurement Strategy, to further strengthen the public procurement framework^[1]. The aim of the strategy is to ensure all public procurement is efficient and encourage market competition, while promoting innovation and considering environmental and social factors.

Based on this, the Government has formulated seven policy objectives:

1. Public procurement as a strategic tool for doing good business
2. Effective purchasing of public goods and services
3. Well-functioning competition from market with a multiplicity of participants
4. Legally certain public procurement ensuring no fraud, corruption or conflict of interest takes place
5. Driving innovation and promoting alternative solutions
6. Environmentally responsible public procurement
7. Socially responsible public procurement

The procurement strategy is aimed primarily at central government authorities. However, the Government intends to work to ensure that municipalities and county councils as well as other contracting authorities and entities, adopt governing documents to put the policy objectives and the Government’s aims for public procurement into practice within their activities.

The effects of the strategy and reforms are starting to flow through into deal flow, with Sweden gaining 7 ranks in the Activity driver since InfraCompass 2017, driven primarily by an increase in private infrastructure investment and deals with foreign sponsorship.