Finland hopes for more skilled Indian professionals, sees 'huge possibilities' to double bilateral trade: Envoy

Finland sees “huge possibilities” to double bilateral trade with India from the current level of around USD 3 billion, with Finnish Ambassador to India Mikko Kivikoski saying the upcoming India-EU Free Trade Agreement will provide a “political and economic framework” to translate growing bilateral engagement into concrete business opportunities.

The envoy said Finnish and Indian leaders had set a clear target to double bilateral trade and expressed optimism that the FTA would further boost economic engagement between the two countries.

“Our leaders during the State visit, Prime Minister Modi and our President Alexander Stubb, actually set a clear target for us to double the trade. At the moment, the trade between our countries is around three billion US dollars. I personally believe that it’s quite modest. So definitely there are huge opportunities to double that,” Kivikoski told ANI.

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“I see among the Finnish businesses… excitement. You can see new companies interested in Indian markets, and the same applies to Indian businesses. So I’m optimistic,” he added.

The ambassador said his priority during his tenure would be to translate the heightened political and economic engagement between the two countries into concrete outcomes.

“It’s been record-high activity bilaterally this year between Finland and India,” he said, referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s engagement with Finland, President Stubb’s State visit to India, the Nordic-India Summit in Oslo and visits by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal to Finland.

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He also highlighted the World Circular Economy Forum held in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, which was jointly organised by the Finnish and Indian governments and marked the first time the forum was held in South Asia.

“When you add to this bilateral activity the fact that the Free Trade Agreement between India and the European Union will be signed by the end of the year and hopefully it will be enforced next year, actually what we are having is quite a nice sort of political and economic framework,” he said.

“Basically, my task here and the task of the Embassy of Finland is to make this framework, to turn it into concrete activities,” he added.

The Finnish envoy also welcomed the contribution of Indian professionals to Finland and said Helsinki hoped to see more skilled Indian workers under the mobility partnership agreed between the two countries.

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“There is already more than 30,000 Indians living permanently in Finland. Most of them are working in the ICT sector and also in engineering. They are a well-integrated, well-respected community in Finland,” he said.

The ambassador said the presence of the Indian community itself demonstrated that Indians and Indian businesses viewed Finland as a “fruitful place” to live and do business.

“During the State visit we also agreed on mobility partnership, so that during this framework these issues will be discussed, and we of course hope to see more skilled labour,” he said.