In the Government’s instruction to the National Board of Trade it is stated that the Board should host a trade facilitation forum, SWEPRO, that brings together the relevant stakeholders for discussions and information sharing on trade facilitation.

SWEPRO monitors and discusses international work and thereby constitutes the platform for Swedish representation in international organisations.

SWEPRO was founded in 1975 and is the oldest PRO organisation in the world. A PRO organisation is a national trade facilitation body in accordance with Recommendation 4 of UN/CEFACT. The idea of a national body for trade facilitation is to ensure that facilitation activities are approached in a coordinated manner to guarantee that problems are not created in one part of the transaction chain by introducing solutions in another part. This requires an effective forum where private sector managers, public-sector administrators and policy makers can work together towards the effective implementation of jointly-agreed facilitation measures.