Ulrica Messing (born 31 January 1968 in

Hällefors Hällefors () is a locality and the seat of Hällefors Municipality, Örebro County, Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders N ...

) is a Swedish politician and

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil service personnel hired rather than elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership. A civil service offic ...

who has served as Governor of Blekinge County since 2021. A member of the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Form ...

, she previously served as Minister for Infrastructure from 2000 to 2006. Messing was Member of Parliament (MP) from 1991 to 2007, representing

Gävleborg County Gävleborg County () is a Counties of Sweden, county or ''län'' on the Baltic Sea coast of Sweden. It borders the counties of Uppsala County, Uppsala, Västmanland County, Västmanland, Dalarna County, Dalarna, Jämtland County, Jämtland and V� ...

. She was chairman of the parliamentary Committee for Defence from 2006 to 2007, when she resigned from Parliament and ended her political career.

Political career

Messing completed high school in 1987. She began her political career in the

Swedish Social Democratic Youth League The Swedish Social Democratic Youth League ( ; SSU) is a branch of the Swedish Social Democratic Party and the Swedish Trade Union Confederation in Sweden. The president has been Lisa Nåbo, since August 2021. Organization The members form loc ...

and was a member of the Municipal Council in

Hofors Municipality Hofors Municipality () is a municipality in Gävleborg County, east central Sweden. Its seat is in Hofors with 7,400 inhabitants, situated at . The first municipality with the name of ''Hofors'' was broken away from ''Torsåker'' in 1925. In 19 ...

from 1989. In 1991 she was elected to the

Riksdag The Riksdag ( , ; also or , ) is the parliament and the parliamentary sovereignty, supreme decision-making body of the Kingdom of Sweden. Since 1971, the Riksdag has been a unicameral parliament with 349 members (), elected proportional rep ...

as a Member of Parliament. From 1993 she was a member of the National Board of the Swedish Social Democratic Party. In 1996

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

Göran Persson Hans Göran Persson (; born 20 January 1949) is a Swedish politician who served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 1996 to 2006 and leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party from 1996 to 2007. Persson was first elected to the Swedish Parliame ...

made her a minister. She first served in the Ministry of Labour, from 1998 in the Ministry of Culture, and from 2000 in the Ministry of Industry, Employment and Communications. During her time as Minister for Communications, Ministry of Industry, Employment and Communications from 2000 to 2006 she was in charge of Swedish arms exports. During her tenure, the volume of Sweden's arms exports grew to become the ninth largest in the world (2005). It increased from 4.4 billion SEK in 2000 to 8.6 billion SEK in 2006. One arms deal during this time that attracted particular criticism was the Swedish company SAAB's export of airplanes to

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

, under military rule at the time, in a deal worth 8.3 billion SEK (about US$1.2 billion).

Personal life

She is married to Swedish businessman and multimillionaire Torsten Jansson since 2009. In 2008 Messing opened a design store called Porthouse Interior in Gothenburg.

References

External links

Information page on the Swedish Government web site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Messing, Ulrica 1968 births Living people People from Hällefors Municipality Members of the Riksdag from the Social Democrats Ministers for gender equality of Sweden Ministers for infrastructure of Sweden Women members of the Riksdag Women government ministers of Sweden Members of the Riksdag 2002–2006 21st-century Swedish women politicians Governors of Blekinge County