Sweden imported goods worth SEK 5,887 million from Portugal in the first six months of 2026, according to Statistics Sweden’s trade-by-partner tables, 14.4 percent more than the SEK 5,147 million recorded in the first half of 2025. Converted at the European Central Bank’s monthly average rates the figure is about €546 million, against €464 million a year earlier, a rise of close to 18 percent in euro terms because the krona has strengthened. Sweden’s goods imports from all countries grew 6.9 percent over the same period, to SEK 1,023 billion, so Portugal’s share edged up from 0.54 to 0.58 percent. The data, published on 27 August with June as the latest month, complete the set of Nordic mirror statistics NorthSouth HQ has been working through this month, after the INE country tables and Statistics Norway’s import table. What the Swedish version adds is the product mix, chapter by chapter of the Combined Nomenclature, and it does not look much like the corridor’s public image.
The recovery is real. Calendar 2025 was a down year: Swedish imports from Portugal fell to SEK 10,298 million from SEK 11,300 million in 2024, a drop of 8.9 percent, and no single month of 2025 reached SEK 1 billion. In 2026 three of the first six months did: January (SEK 1,009 million), March (SEK 1,089 million, the highest monthly figure since November 2024) and April (SEK 1,065 million). Six months into the year, Sweden has already bought 57 percent of what it bought from Portugal in the whole of 2025.
| CN chapter | H1 2025 (SEK M) | H1 2026 (SEK M) | Change | Share H1 2026 | Full year 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 85 Electrical machinery and equipment | 1,257.9 | 1,364.5 | +8.5% | 23.2% | 2,360.1 |
| 26 Ores, slag and ash | 580.5 | 1,133.2 | +95.2% | 19.2% | 1,385.0 |
| 90 Optical, measuring and medical instruments | 445.3 | 530.9 | +19.2% | 9.0% | 840.4 |
| 87 Vehicles and parts | 635.6 | 478.8 | −24.7% | 8.1% | 1,286.7 |
| 47 Pulp | 473.3 | 349.3 | −26.2% | 5.9% | 891.7 |
| 84 Machinery and mechanical appliances | 272.4 | 274.4 | +0.7% | 4.7% | 565.8 |
| 94 Furniture, bedding, lighting | 121.0 | 243.8 | +101.5% | 4.1% | 244.2 |
| 74 Copper and articles of copper | 5.6 | 181.8 | n/m | 3.1% | 16.4 |
| 61 Knitted apparel | 132.4 | 156.5 | +18.2% | 2.7% | 286.8 |
| 62 Woven apparel | 143.0 | 129.8 | −9.2% | 2.2% | 303.3 |
| 22 Beverages (wine and spirits) | 136.4 | 121.1 | −11.2% | 2.1% | 257.6 |
| 69 Ceramic products | 93.4 | 87.8 | −6.0% | 1.5% | 176.5 |
| 64 Footwear | 60.2 | 61.3 | +1.8% | 1.0% | 179.2 |
| All goods | 5,147 | 5,887 | +14.4% | 100% | 10,298 |
Source: Statistics Sweden (SCB), imports of goods by country of consignment and CN chapter, table ImpTotalKNMan, not adjusted for non-response, data to June 2026 published 27 August 2026; NorthSouth HQ calculations. n/m = not meaningful.
Six kronor in ten are industrial
Four chapters, electrical machinery, ores, instruments and vehicles, account for 59.6 percent of everything Sweden buys from Portugal. The consumer categories that dominate the corridor’s conversation, wine and spirits, footwear, knitted and woven clothing and ceramics, add up to 9.5 percent. That is worth stating plainly, because NorthSouth HQ has spent much of September on Systembolaget’s Portuguese shelf and Portuguese footwear: those are the visible face of Portugal in Sweden, and together they are a tenth of the money.
Electrical machinery and equipment (chapter 85) is the largest line at SEK 1,364.5 million, up 8.5 percent, and about 1.1 percent of the SEK 125 billion Sweden imports in that chapter from the world. The chapter covers wiring and cables, transformers, batteries, electronic components and automotive electronics, which is to say the output of Portugal’s cable and vehicle-electronics cluster rather than any single Swedish brand. Two of the corridor’s documented supply lines sit inside it: Coficab, whose Guarda plant makes the automotive cable that reaches Scania and Volvo Trucks through Tier-1 harness makers, and Efacec, the Matosinhos transformer and rail-systems group that holds a Trafikverket framework for level-crossing protection. The chapter was nonetheless down in 2025, from SEK 2,871 million in 2024 to SEK 2,360 million, and the first half of 2026 recovers only part of that.
Ores, slag and ash (chapter 26) is the story of the half-year: SEK 1,133.2 million, up 95.2 percent, and roughly a tenth of all the ore Sweden imported from anywhere in the period. The monthly series is lumpy in the way bulk shipments are, with nothing at all recorded in May and SEK 329 million in January, so the growth rate says less than the level. Since Boliden completed its purchase of the Neves-Corvo copper-zinc mine in April 2025, concentrate from the Alentejo has been an intra-group flow, and copper concentrate for the group’s Rönnskär smelter in Skellefteå is the obvious candidate for what is moving; zinc concentrate more typically heads for Boliden’s smelters at Odda in Norway and Kokkola in Finland, and Statistics Norway’s table showed the same chapter up 30 percent in Norway’s imports from Portugal in the first seven months.
Optical, measuring and medical instruments (chapter 90), at SEK 530.9 million and up 19.2 percent, is the third-largest line and the least discussed. It is a broad chapter, from optical fibre and measuring devices to medical equipment, and April alone contributed SEK 137 million; SCB’s two-digit data do not say which. It has been a steady SEK 800 to 900 million a year since 2023, which makes it larger than wine, footwear and ceramics combined and a category worth a closer look by anyone mapping Portuguese suppliers to Swedish industry.
What fell: vehicles, pulp and wine
Vehicles and parts (chapter 87) fell 24.7 percent to SEK 478.8 million after a strong 2025 in which the chapter reached SEK 1,286.7 million, its highest in the series, from SEK 884.6 million in 2023. The decline is consistent with a weak year for Portuguese vehicle output; Jornal de Negócios reported this week that August was the worst month for Portuguese car production since the semiconductor crisis. Part of this chapter is the seat-cover and interior trim that Coindu supplies from Joane to Volvo Cars, but most of it is finished vehicles and components moving through European distribution.
Pulp (chapter 47) fell 26.2 percent to SEK 349.3 million, yet Portugal still supplied about 15 percent of the SEK 2.3 billion of pulp Sweden imported in the half-year, a remarkable figure for a country that is itself one of the world’s largest pulp producers. The explanation is fibre: Swedish tissue and specialty-paper mills buy bleached eucalyptus kraft pulp from Altri and Navigator because Nordic softwood cannot give them the same softness. Machinery (chapter 84) is flat at SEK 274.4 million but has structurally halved, from SEK 1,365 million in 2023 to SEK 566 million in 2025. And beverages (chapter 22), essentially wine, port and Madeira for Systembolaget and the restaurant trade, slipped 11.2 percent to SEK 121.1 million, continuing a drift from SEK 281.7 million in 2024 to SEK 257.6 million in 2025 that matches the flat Portuguese count on the monopoly’s shelf.
What rose: furniture, copper, knitwear
Furniture, bedding and lighting (chapter 94) doubled to SEK 243.8 million, which is as much as Sweden imported from Portugal in the whole of 2025, with a single spike of SEK 111 million in March. The Paços de Ferreira plant of IKEA Industry, which exports about 96 percent of its output to around 21 countries, is the largest furniture exporter in Portugal and the natural first place to look, though the data do not name shippers; the same company’s retail arm announced €34 million of price cuts in Portugal this week. Copper and copper articles (chapter 74) jumped from SEK 5.6 million to SEK 181.8 million on what looks like a single May consignment of SEK 173 million, and should be treated as a one-off until it repeats. Knitted apparel (chapter 61) rose 18.2 percent to SEK 156.5 million while woven apparel fell 9.2 percent, leaving clothing as a whole up 4 percent at SEK 286 million; knitted fabrics (chapter 60) went from almost nothing to SEK 30 million, and articles of iron and steel rose 37 percent to SEK 78.7 million.
Reconciling with INE
The Swedish figures are lower than the Portuguese ones, and in the opposite direction from Norway. INE’s July release put Portuguese exports to Sweden at €706.7 million for January to July, which after removing July’s €107.3 million implies roughly €599 million for the first half, against SCB’s €546 million: Sweden records about 9 percent less. The reason is method. SCB’s intra-EU figures are by country of consignment, the country from which the goods were dispatched, so Portuguese goods that pass through a Dutch, German or Spanish distribution centre before crossing into Sweden are booked to that country rather than to Portugal. INE records the declared final destination. For Norway the bias runs the other way, because goods cleared into the EU elsewhere and then shipped on are lost to INE, which is why SSB showed 29 percent more than INE last week. Neither series is wrong; together they bracket the truth, and both say the Swedish leg of the corridor is growing at double-digit rates in a year when Portuguese exports as a whole are up 2.5 percent.
SCB’s July figures are due at the end of September, and NorthSouth HQ will update this series when the third quarter is complete. Portuguese exporters with named Swedish customers, from cable and pulp to port and Vinho Verde, are listed in the Portuguese Companies in Scandinavia directory.