With half a day of economic topic is obviously not enough. The lecture is too short to handle all of our discussions. But fortunately, economy is ubiquitous all day just all the time such as the present moment when I am in the train to Kitee where my host family lives, big forest standing on the both sides of the railway---it is the dominant economic industry in Finland several decades ago and even nowadays.

I read the book a "portrait of Finland" where there is always a question: what is the next Nokia? Yes, it is quite reasonable to concern such a question especially during the economy crisis period.

Finland must have met the similar questions before: what is the next dominant industry after the forestry? Every country should be challenged by those questions and Finland has already got some preparation for the future prosperity.

There seems to be a bit boring playing with economic data. But I should say the lecture about Finnish economy is informative and conducive to my understanding of the future economic tendency despite the fact that my country is totally different from Finland in every way like territory, population, level of development and technology investment. (I should say I've been disappointed by the statistics of R&D investment in the total GDP which shows that China is ranked the second to last in the list, but it is true…sigh.)

How about Finnish economy nowadays? It is on the way of a smart giant: strong brain in a mini-body. What is the next step after Nokia's success? Or the question can be: Has Finland prepared well for the future attractive products it can export/introduce to the rest of the world?

Low-carbon technology is frequently mentioned here. Today I saw some pieces of the idea of the technology today when we took the tour around Neste Oil Refinery area. But I am still wondering whether the low-carbon and carbon storage technology can be promoted economically because of its large investment and perhaps relatively small profit. I once participated in an academic forum about Carbon Capture and Storage technology from British Consulate-general in Shanghai. I was told that the updated and advanced technology will take one or two decades to decrease its cost.

Another answer could be water treatment industry. I saw from the pamphlet which entitles water as the "future oil". But relying on the clean water resource (though the Baltic Sea is polluted), it seems to be not economically efficient to transport the clean water products outside Finland.

But I'm fully convinced that the Finnish smart giant will find its way to get through those challenges. There is some positive information from China. Though China is not a big partner of Finland, some actions have been taken in the cooperative projects in China. I've been to such half-official organizations as FinChi, Tekes and FECC in Shanghai where they help many small Finnish companies to find their Chinese market and partners. Recently the number of projects and investments are increasing. (It is also reported that a China Innovation Centre will be established in Helsinki in the near future.) I was surprised by this state public service because it shows some ambitions of Finland in the future prosperous market. I think it should be a feasible way to explore new market possibilities apart from Nokia. 
Huijue Ye (China) 8/18/2009 12:40 PM