Ceiling of imports

Despite the brisk Chinese economic growth in last decade, Chinese exports to Finland seem to have reached their ceiling under prevailing barriers of trade, the researchers say. China is the fourth largest source of imported goods to Finland. The level had increased until 2009 and has remained stable since. In all, China covers seven or eight percent of Finnish imports. 

“The market share of China in imports to Finland has reached its ceiling level, under existing structures of production and demand, and the barriers of trade,” Kotilainen and Kaitila have said. “World trade has reached a certain balance at the level of the present barriers of trade and globalisation. If barriers of trade could be further reduced, international trade and value chains would acclimatise to the new situation”, the writers note, reminding at the same time that barriers could be increased as well.

Meanwhile, Chinese investment in Finland is growing rapidly, even though Chinese investment in Finland has so far been low. In 2015 there were 16 Chinese subsidiaries in Finland. Recently, Chinese companies have become active in Finland in areas where Finland has either specific know-how or raw materials. Developments include the acquisition of a majority stake in the mobile game company Supercell by the Chinese internet giant Tencent in 2016.