Finland as a Business Location Barometer 2020 Released

Foreign-owned companies bring capital and jobs to Finland.

FDI and talent attraction are key to future prosperity.

Over 400 C-level executives from foreign-owned companies and Finnish companies were interviewed for Business Finland and Amcham Finland’s joint Finland as a Business Location Barometer 2020.

Why?

Because we wanted to concretely show how international companies see Finland as a business environment and investment destination, before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. Here are the key points:

• Foreign-owned companies view the Finnish business environment more positively than Finnish companies. They also regard societal stability, functionality, quality of living, and digital infrastructure as strengths of Finland. These factors were very important to Finnish companies as well.
• Finland scored slightly higher than two years ago when leaders of foreign-owned companies were asked what they think about the business environment.
• Personal income tax, salary flexibility, and labor costs were challenges in the Finnish business environment, which have not changed since 2018. Therefore, flexibility of the labor market is a key in maintaining operations in Finland.
• Foreign-owned companies are more active than Finnish companies in moving their operations.
• Foreign direct investments (FDI) have a significant impact on the Finnish economy. The barometer shows that 44% of foreign-owned companies plan to hire more personnel in 2020-2021, and 30% intend to invest more in R&D. In addition, one new job created in Finland leads to a minimum of two additional jobs, and one euro invested produces three additional euros.
• Only approximately 1% of companies operating in Finland are foreign-owned, however, their impact is much greater than this number suggests. These 4 400 companies employ almost 266 000 people, which is approximately 18% of personnel of all companies in Finland. Based on 2018 statistics, the combined revenue of foreign-owned companies was 96 billion euros.

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Finland as a Business Location Barometer 2020

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Future Finland: Towards the Ideal Business Location online event
attended by 150+ senior executives and government decision makers

Watch the recording of our collaborative Future Finland event here!

Barometer story picked up by Finland’s most prestigious publications,

as well as followers on Twitter