Russia Will Remain Important Market for Finland

Russia will remain an important market for Finnish companies, Foreign Trade and Development Minister Kai Mykkanen told TASS on Monday prior to his visit to Moscow to attend the meeting of the intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation.

“I believe economic development of Russia in recent years will strongly depend on the oil price. When it started growing recently, moderate stabilization [in the economy] also appeared and the ruble this year is more stable, comparing to the last year. This highly influenced on the interest of Finnish companies in the Russian market in spring and even more in early fall. The desire to boost sales again and look for expansion opportunities has obviously grown,” the Finnish minister said.

“It’s positive that the majority of Finnish companies remained on the Russian market even in challenging time,” Mykk·nen said. “About 400 Finnish companies are working in Russia and cases are rare when someone withdrew. We understand Russia remains the most important market; we are ready to invest there,” he said.

“Let’s hope economies of both countries will start growing during the forthcoming decade and the mutual trade will begin to grow at the same time,” Mykkanen added.

“We had a good preparatory discussion with Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak [Russia’s co-chairman of the commission – TASS] about a month ago and prepared a list of economic issues that we will hopefully bring closer to resolution during that meeting. I consider highly appropriate to identify important problems and try to come to their resolution, taking into account significant mutual trade between Finland and Russia, and to promote Finnish-Russian trade relations,” Mykkanen said.

“I expect achieving as specific results as possible at the meeting on topics we outlined. These are the challenges Finnish private companies face in Russia and Russian [companies] in Finland. More general problems are also in place and we will definitely discuss them,” he added.