Liberalisation of services and trade would support export and create jobs in Finland

Press release 74/2015
5 March 2015

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs together with the Confederation of Finnish Industries organised a discussion event on the preconditions for service business on 5 March 2015. The keynote speakers at the event, entitled “Not only laundering shirts” – The rising importance of services to the Finnish economy, were Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade Lenita Toivakka and OECD Deputy Secretary-General Mari Kiviniemi.

“The OECD recommendation for the path to growth is to increase trade and reduce protectionism. Not a single study can be found that would show that protectionism leads to economic growth in the long term. Finland’s service markets are relatively heavily regulated also when compared to the other Nordic countries and the Netherlands,” OECD Deputy Secretary-General Mari Kiviniemi said at the event.

Services employ about 70 per cent of the labour force in Finland.

“Well-functioning service markets are a precondition for our competitive export industry. Our domestic market, however, is closed and heavily restricted; also according to the OECD. By dismantling regulation and opening trade both at home and abroad in the form of free trade agreements, we would improve the preconditions for export and create new jobs in Finland. In this way we could also benefit better from growth in the international trade in services,” Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade Lenita Toivakka concludes.

Additional information: Miika Tomi, Press Attaché to the Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade, mobile tel. +358 50 5740507.