Bilateral relations go full steam ahead

Finland's Ambassador to China Antti Kuosmanen is proud of his country's impressive economic growth. And as he contemplates the 90th anniversary of Finland's Independence Day, which is today, he hopes Sino-Finnish bilateral relations will go full steam ahead.

He said that Finland declared its independence in 1917, towards the end of World War I, at a time of great upheavals in Europe, including the collapse of the Russian Empire.

"Our independence began with a tragedy, a short but bloody civil war," Kuosmanen told China Daily in an interview.

It left deep wounds that took decades to heal.

"One of our great early achievements was the ability to reconcile the enmity between the victors and the defeated so that at the time of World War II, our nation could face the enemy united and survive," the ambassador said.

Nowadays, Finland has created a highly developed economy and high living standards, including a high-level of social protection.

"Indeed, Finnish scholars have been able to calculate that Finnish gross domestic product (GDP) grew 21-fold in the period of 1860-2000. In comparison, the average gross national product (GNP) of the other EU countries (excluding the new Eastern European Member States) grew 11-fold during the same period," he said.

Finnish economic growth has attracted worldwide attention.

In the 1950s, the Finnish economy still depended heavily on primary production. The share of the agricultural population was half of the total.

Today, agriculture represents 3-4 percent of Finland's GDP (while producing about the same amount as 50 years ago), and the service economy, in particular, the information sector, dominate Finland's GDP.

"Our people take pride in the achievement - the profound structural change and rapid economic growth in the past several decades," the ambassador stressed.

To sum up the recipe for success, Kuosmanen points out several factors:

Finland has pursued an open market-based economy combined with effective public institutions to guarantee a high level playing field for economic operators and social justice for its citizens, he said.

The nation has also promoted private enterprise. "When in some cases the government contributed to the building up of certain core industries, as soon as private capital was sufficient, it withdrew. Now the lack of capital is not anymore an obstacle so the role of the state in industries has been consistently reduced," he said.

In today's globalized economy, relying on innovation and cutting-edge technology, there are assets difficult to get but invaluable to keep, which in fact help Finnish's economy make headway.

"Characteristics of the Finnish psyche are the valuing of education, skills and a high work ethics, all contributing to each other," the ambassador emphasized.

"Some people explain our success with a particular Finnish trait 'sisu', which means guts, endurance, or resilience," the ambassador said.

He spoke in a modest mode to explain this. "Personally I am not quite convinced of our uniqueness in this respect, knowing the hardships other nations have had to endure. Nevertheless, it is true that we too have had to survive hard times and we have survived."

Apart from the tough conditions caused by the heavy losses during the Finland civil war and World War II, Finland was plugged into a deep economic crisis in the early 1990s.

The GDP fell 13 percent in two years and unemployment shot up to 20 percent and the government went deep into debt.

However, during the tough times, the nation built the basis of more recent success.

"We invested heavily on education and R&D, creating mechanisms that guarantee smooth cooperation between the scientific and business communities to create productive innovation," the ambassador pointed out. The nation's strategy started to pay off since the second half of 1990s.

Bilateral relations

The ambassador hailed Sino-Finnish bilateral relations. "Finland, whose cultural background, history, political philosophy are so different with China as well as its geographic separation with the nation, has actually a remarkable diplomatic story with China."

Finland was among the first Western countries to have recognized the People's Republic of China and established diplomatic relations and started early to expand trade relations with China.

All these have been expanded enormously during the past decades, especially with the late 1970s reform and opening up.

Today, there are dozens of fields where the nations make sound cooperation, of which a majority cover different aspects of economic relations but they do not stop there. For example, in the judicial area, Finland has contributed to China's legal system.

"A good yardstick for assessing intensifying of our continuing broad-based contacts are numerous visits- indeed too numerous to keep track of," the ambassador said.

At the top level, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao met with Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen last year and Finnish President Tarja Halonen met with Wen again this year and many cabinet ministers line up to make visits in both directions.

The ambassador is pleased to note that Finnish companies have invested heavily in China led by Nokia and followed by many others. He has also noted with satisfaction that the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) confirmed the continuation of China's opening-up policies.

The congress created opportunities for further cooperation with China's partners. "We in Finland are ready for that," the ambassador noted.

He is happy that Chinese authorities promise to provide assistance to help small and medium-sized enterprises from Finland launch their businesses in China.

The Trade and Technology Section of Finland Embassy in Beijing and Finland China Innovation Center in Shanghai have made great efforts in technology cooperation with China. The two nations have cooperated in the building up of China's hi-tech park system and Chinese park managers have spent time in Finland studying Finland's system.

In the tourism sector, the ambassador believes next year's Olympic Games will bring many Finnish visitors to Beijing.

He is delighted that Finnair has become the third largest carrier between China and Europe.

"China's increasing weight in the world makes it an ever more important partner to us, and we are happy to develop our relations further in various fields, both directly and as a member of the EU," he noted.

As a member of the EU, Finland is able to further expand the scope of bilateral relationships as manifested last year during the Finnish Presidency in the EU.

The EU-China Summit held in Helsinki, capital of Finland, and the ASEM6 (Asia-Europe Meeting 6) last year, which also laid the foundation for ASEM7 to be organized in Beijing next year, are prime examples to boost Finland-China relations as well as the two nations joint efforts to enhance EU-Asia relations.

"One important area in the Europe-Asia context, where both China and Finland can and should promote increased cooperation and pursue concrete results is climate change," he said.

Higher expectation

He expects more Chinese companies, especially hi-tech and knowledge intensive businesses, to make a presence in Finland and enhance their investment in the country that has the strength to provide a good environment, and has ideal research and development (R&D) capacity and excellent information infrastructure.

"Finland is a good place to live and work, and I would encourage more Chinese entrepreneurs to look into the opportunities there," he said. The nation has one of the top national innovation systems in the world, as testified by many international comparisons over the years.

Finland also has the best system for knowledge transfer between universities and companies. Among such are information and telecommunications, metals, machinery, forestry, and paper as well as health and well-being.

The Finnish government aims to increase national R&D investment to 4 percent of GDP by 2010.

In the field of cultural exchange, Finland will concentrate on building lasting partnerships with Chinese institutions, producers and artists over an extended period instead of "one-off" events. "We hope this strategy will bring fruitful results in the coming years," he said.

The areas with the highest potentials are music, design, architecture and film.

"We aim at introducing the most modern and progressive part of the Finnish culture to Chinese professionals and the public," he added.

(China Daily 12/06/2007 page21)