Last year, Sweden was named in international media ten times more than the year before, according to the Swedish Institute, a state-run organisation whose job it is to promote the country abroad.

And it was not all positive.

According to the Swedish Institute, in Turkey and Saudi Arabia around 40 percent of all content related to a series of rallies at which activists burned copies of the Quran, reports the Dagens Nyheter (DN) daily.

Simultaneously, a conspiracy campaign falsely claiming that the Swedish social services regularly kidnap Muslim children gained traction and also contributed to a more negative image of the Nordic country in large parts of the Arab world, despite attempts to counter the disinformation.

“We as a government have spent a lot of time on these issues. I myself have made trips to the region to meet political leaders and business people. Last autumn, I probably thought that the consequences for trade would be greater than they were,” Sweden’s Foreign Trade Minister Johan Forssell told DN.

Despite expectations, trade between Sweden and the Middle East increased during this period, but Forsell said action was still needed to strengthen the country’s image.

To do this, he has this week told the Swedish Institute to form a new group called “Team Sweden”, which will focus exclusively on boosting Sweden’s international reputation.

Promoting Sweden as an innovative country, with a particular focus on digitalisation and being an environmentally sustainable economy and society, will be one of the group’s main objectives.

“There’s partly a security component. We know that actors deliberately spread false information that risks having very drastic results,” Forsell told DN.

“And partly we see how many businesses are affected by the Sweden image. These statements can sometimes have direct consequences for their profits and losses,” he added.

The new group will replace parts of the existing Council for the Promotion of Sweden, which is to be discontinued.