Greetings From Business Finland

Something old, something new, and something blue

China is the biggest international mission for both Business Finland and Team Finland in general. During the past year, many things have changed, since the China country management and Shanghai office heading were handed over to us. Moreover, even many of the remaining things have been in turbulence due to the corona virus situation and the business environment might not be the same anymore after this special period.

As these challenging times have also opened up many new business opportunities in the China market, from digitalisation to health and beyond, this time is on the other hand suitable for driving transformation to take place and to develop our own ways of working to be able to serve the Finnish companies even better. Due to our joint experience from academic research, industry-academy collaboration, global business and governmental work with a special emphasis on digitalization technologies and digital transformation, there will be “something old, something new, and something blue” in the Business Finland operations, while we aim to meet the new expectations and competition in the market.

In Business Finland, we are doing activities in export, Invest In, Visit Finland and innovation areas as earlier, but we are also driving more collaboration across the above-mentioned functions. Our aim is to increase both export to China, investments in Finland and collaboration between the countries by combining innovation with business more strongly. With online tools, even after the special times, we can ensure the dialogue between Finland and China – and thus between Finnish companies and Chinese customers/investors – on a more sustainable manner and we are no longer tied to traditional delegation visits only.

Based on our working experience so far, we are very pleased to see the close cooperation we have here in Shanghai between Consulate General, Business Finland, FinChi and Finnish Business Council, as well as with all the companies and stakeholders.

Although our joint journey has just begun, we have a long common history and solid basis to enable new things to happen, so we believe that together we can make a difference – there are so many opportunities and true Team Finland spirit in the air!

Mika Klemettinen, PhD

Head of Business Finland office in Shanghai

Trade and Innovation Consul at the Consulate General of Finland in Shanghai

Eija Tynkkynen

Country Manager, China, Business Finland

Commercial Counsellor, Embassy of Finland in Beijing