THE European real estate market has had a tough time of late. Luckily that period may be behind us. According to the Bank of Finland all building starts have begun an upward trend. Dwelling prices bottomed out early in 2009 and have been on the rise ever since. All this may be good news for foreign real estate companies eyeing investment opportunities.

Magnus Johanson of the marketing and communications agency Union has been thinking a lot about the real estate market in the greater Helsinki area recently. He has immersed himself into a study of the industry and what it offers foreign...

Lauri Kivinen brings experience in telecommunications technology to a changing media landscape.

THE NEW Director-General of the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE), Lauri Kivinen, has some advice: bickering will lead us nowhere in the media world. He is calling for a collective discussion on the challenges facing the industry.

“I’m absolutely convinced that we in the media world are all in the same boat. We face the same challenges irrespective of ownership or distribution channels.”

Forest owners in Southern Finland face a massive bill after a devastating winter.

AN EXCEPTIONALLY snowy winter has wrought destruction in Southern Finland’s forests. According to Docent Risto Jalkanen of the Finnish Forest Research Institute, crown snow-load – the crust of snow and hard rime that accumulates on tree crowns and other structures – has caused damage in many parts of Southern Finland, especially to decayed trees.

“Birch and deciduous trees have sagged under a burden of snow. Bouts of serious frost also appear to have damaged large pine forests.”

Gold currently costs 25,000 euros a kilo.

ONCE the goldmine in Kittilä’s Suurikuusikko, in northern Finland, starts running at full capacity, production of gold in Finland will double this year. Kittilä will yield five tonnes of gold a year, making the mine among Europe’s largest.

When Kittilä is joined next year by Ilomantsi’s Pampalo mine and Raahe’s Laivakangas mine, gold production will rise by a further five tonnes.

New figures released by Statistics Finland show a sharp, sudden drop in gdp last year.

Finnish GDP took a historically large tumble last year. According to figures released on 1 March by Statistics Finland, total production contracted by 7.8 per cent. The national accounts show that the economy plunged into recession over a mere three months in response to collapsing export markets.

“At the beginning of the 90s GDP fell by around ten per cent, but it happened over a three-year period. The last time total production contracted so sharply was in 1917 and 1918,” said Tuomas Rothovius, head of national accounts at Statistics Finland.

Finland’s listed companies may have suffered in the recession, but many of their shareholders have less reason to worry.

LARGE companies listed on the Finnish stock exchange have been far from stingy in distributing dividends this spring – assuming recommendations by the boards of directors survive the company’s annual general meeting (AGM). Seven of the 12 listed major companies have either increased or maintained the size of their dividend to shareholders, despite a year in which company profits took a beating.

Finland’s debt management tactics resemble Greek counterparts but are deemed acceptable by analysts.

Besides the securitisation scheme which transferred debt, Finland also counted private pension funds as public, thus making government finances look even better. Finland was increasing its reportable assets and decreasing its reportable debt.

Although controversial, some economists are forgiving of Finland’s methodology. Tarmo Valkonen, head of the public finance and economy policy division at the Research Institute of the Finnish Economy ETLA, ...

Greece’s public finances have been under intense scrutiny in recent weeks. Questionable accounting practices have been used that may have hidden the extent of the nation’s debt crisis. Greece is not alone. Finland has used similar tricks in the past.

The eurozone pact requires countries to keep total debt below 60 per cent of gross domestic product and annual budget deficits under 3 per cent. To meet the criteria various accounting measures have been used by some countries in order to make their official statistics measure up. Some complex financial transactions have been used as well.

On January 29th 2009, the ICT Demo Center opened its doors. This non-profit organisation is founded by 7 private companies. For today over 40 companies are joined and more than 250 solutions are represented.

The showroom is divided into six areas (home, work, street, forest, school, state) in which different solutions are proposed. The ICT Demo Center is the best opportunity to show the pulic and private ICT solutions created in Estonia and see them functioning together. At any time, companies can join the showroom and install new products, the list of partners and services are never ending.

The recession has cut demand for oil.

The risks to Finnish waters and surrounding areas posed by oil transport traffic are increasing, even if oil tanker architecture has become more sophisticated. Increased traffic volume has heightened the danger of an oil spill. All oil tankers passing through Finnish ports must be double-hulled. Russian ports demand likewise.

The problems with oil transport were especially prominent in 2002 and 2003, when two Greek tankers became grounded in the Gulf of Finland. Both vessels were single-hulled.