Swedish environmental technology export swells drastically in China as the fast-growing Asian country invests heavily in green energy.

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Export of Swedish cleantech is on the rise in China as its share of the country’s total merchandise export increases rapidly, according to new statistics.

Swedish environmental engineering export to China swelled by 51 percent last year, from 1,463 million kronor ($200 million) in 2008 to 2,219 million kronor in 2009, according to a sum up by Swentec, the Swedish Environmental Technology Council. China thus climbed from being the ninth to the second largest export market for Swedish cleantech companies – after Germany.

“China obviously is a very important market. It’s also interesting and positive for Sweden that wind-power and solar-power are growing dramatically, with 64 respectively 61 percent on a global basis” Jonnie Wistrand, Editor-in-chief of the green-tech site Teknik360, told The Swedish Wire.

China, the world’s biggest polluter, today burns coal to produce about 80 percent of its electricity. But it wants at least 15 percent of its energy to come from renewable sources by 2020. According to the Bloomberg New Energy Finance report China spent 34.6 billion dollar on renewable energy last year. That’s 94.7 million dollar per day — and twice what the U.S. spent.

China is also on the verge of becoming the most active country in the cleantech sector, based on watts of energy installed, according to a report by non-profit think tank Pew Charitable Trusts.

Export of environmental technology has for the last few years made up some 1 – 2 percent of Sweden’s total merchandise export. In 2008 it increased to 2.8 percent and to 3.2 percent. While Swedish export of goods dived 16 percent during last year's global downturn cleantech export only declined 8 percent.

“To invest in green growth and a switch to eco-efficient economy pay off for Sweden”, said Berit Gullbransson at Swentec.

Cleantech is a term used to describe knowledge-based products or services that improve operational performance, productivity, or efficiency while reducing costs, inputs, energy consumption, waste, or pollution, according to Wikipedia.