Greetings to FBCS From Jaani Heinonen, Head of Finpro in NE Asia

Dear FBCS members and friends of Finnish business,

 

It’s again my pleasure to have a chance to greet all readers of this excellent FBCS Annual Publication. The activities of the Finnish companies in China and the FBCS are continuing very strong. Since the last Annual Publication lots of good things have happened in China and specifically in Shanghai. The Finnish business has stayed strong in the traditional sectors like Paper & Pulp and ICT. There has been some impressive growth and breakthroughs in areas like Wood products, Food sector and Design.

 

The Chinese investments to Finland have reached new record breaking levels and this gives Finnish companies a totally new opportunity to expand in the Chinese and global markets with capital and local market expertise. The Travel industry is also very active and tourism from China to Finland has continued it’s steady growth bringing lots of new business opportunities. It’s already possible to use Alipay in 500 different locations in Finland.

 

The Finnish startup companies have also become much more active in China. A lot of this is thanks the SLUSH China team which arranged a very successful event last year and we look forward to another inspiring SLUSH Shanghai event this October. Team Finland continues to work hard to support the success of the Finnish companies in China.

 

As part of the development process of Team Finland, Finpro and Tekes will merge in January 2018 into a new organization called Business Finland. For the company clients Business Finland will enable an unbroken service chain from the development of a product or service all the way to commercialisation and exports. At the same time, a great leap is taken towards a genuine one-stop shop principle. In Shanghai Team Finland is happy to have FBCS as an active member and the daily cooperation is very close and good with the shared office in the FinChi Innovation Center. I look forward to lots more new success stories for Finnish companies in China and Team Finland will always be at your service!