Guinea-Bissau–Sweden relations

Guinea-Bissau–Sweden relations

Guinea-Bissau	Sweden

Guinea-Bissau–Sweden relations is the bilateral foreign relations between the two countries Guinea-Bissau and Sweden. The ambassador of Sweden to Senegal is accredited to Guinea-Bissau. Sweden has an honorary consulate in Bissau. Guinea-Bissau is represented in Sweden through its embassy in Brussels and a consul in .

Contacts between Sweden and the area that later became the independent state of Guinea-Bissau were marginal until the late 1960s. Whilst trade relations between Sweden and Portugal increased rapidly after both countries had joined EFTA in 1960, there were few contacts between Sweden and the Portuguese possessions in Africa. The imports from 'Portuguese West Africa' (which in Swedish statistics included Portuguese Guinea, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe and Angola) represented merely 0.04% of Swedish imports (2.3 million Swedish kronor) in 1950. Exports to 'Portuguese West Africa' amounted to 0.03% (1.8 million kronor) of the total Swedish exports in the same year. By 1960 the Swedish imports from these areas remained at around 0.03% whilst Swedish exports had increased marginally (0.08% of all Swedish exports).

The first African liberation movement to have a comprehensive co-operative programme established with the Swedish government was the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC). The first documented contact between PAIGC and Sweden occurred in the early 1960s, as Amílcar Cabral requested to Swedish journalist Anders Ehnmark to launch an appeal to support the liberation struggle in Guinea-Bissau (after a solidarity campaign of Ehnmark's paper Expressen for Angolan refugees had gathered a large response from the Swedish public). Around 1967 the international secretary of the Swedish Social Democratic Party, Pierre Schori, had visited Portugal. After his return, he urged his party to support PAIGC. From the late 1960s, the two parties developed mutual relations.

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