Assisted by the trade and industry ministries, Finnish and Swedish companies embark on an ambitious joint mission to conquer global markets. Behind the new strategy revealed in Stockholm on Tuesday is the realisation that Nordic companies are often too small to succeed independently. Reported first by the news site Uusi Suomi, the Swedish Minister for Foreign Trade and Nordic Affairs, Anna Hallberg (SDP) described the deepening cooperation as a “perfect match”. According to her, trade has become a “fragmenting” element in global politics. Therefore, Swedish-Finnish cooperation is needed as a counterbalance.
“We need each other to make tenders as strong as possible. Competition in the world, including inside Europe, is hard. Now, when there is a lot of recovery money available, we need to do more right things together and also in new ways,” said the Finnish Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade, Ville Skinnari (SDP). The strategy will seek to boost novel technologies such as Nordic green solutions, including electrification of traffic and hydro energy. It will also encourage universities to collaborate, attract new investments and thus spark innovations and breakthroughs. According to Anna Hallberg, the countries need “thousands of new engineers”.