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Nick Walker

Finland's Nokia plays a huge role in the way Hong Kong's business and social worlds communicate

ONE DOES NOT HAVE to look far in Hong Kong for Finland's  most ubiquitous icon - the Nokia handset. The Central district banker has one  pressed to his ear as he heads for the MTR; the domestic worker at the supermarket  uses it to call  her employer about what to buy, and the young Japanese couple on board the Star Ferry use it to  call friends back home.

Over the past 15 years, Nokia has played a huge role in the transformation of Hong Kong society, which has embraced the mobile phone with gusto.

Nokia has about 6,000 employees on the mainland, and its largest regional plant is in Dongguan in Guangdong province.

The company recently reported that handset sales in the combined market of Hong Kong, Taiwan and the mainland surged 77 per cent year on year.

The Nokia story is all the more extraordinary given its country of origin. At a glance, Finland and Hong Kong have little in common. Finland is a thinly populated land of endless forests, whereas Hong Kong is a densely populated  forest of high-rises. But there is one striking similarity: both places are highly advanced 'information societies' with high levels of creativity in the realms of IT and digital telecommunications.

With its fickle but adventurous consumers, Hong Kong is 'a market where [Finland] likes to test new and experimental products first', according to a Finnish foreign ministry source.

'Hong Kong consumers are so sophisticated that we are able to make projections for other markets too,' the source said.

Finland, like Hong Kong, punches above its weight on the global stage, from telecommunications giants  and world-beating rock groups such as The Rasmus to chic products that can hold their own against the best of neighbouring design supernovas Sweden and Denmark.

Nevertheless, 'Finland can learn much from Hong Kong', according to Finland Consul-General Pauli Makela.

'The way Hong Kong has managed to restructure its economy is something our country is looking at as we undertake our own measures to further develop our services sector,' he said.

'Actually, Finland is very much looking forward to the day, and it may well come soon, when we export services to Hong Kong.'

Despite its relatively large size (338,145 square kilometres), the country is not easy to find on the map. Wedged between   Russia and Scandinavian cousins Sweden and Norway, it is considered one of the five core Nordic countries.

Intriguingly, however, unlike the other nations in this group, the Finnish language is not considered a Scandinavian language as such.

For not fully clear linguistic-historical reasons, Finnish is closer to Hungarian than to Swedish or Norwegian.

In recent years, however, all of Finland's European neighbours have drawn much closer.

Rapidly increasing integration with western Europe - Finland was one of the 12 countries joining the European Economic and Monetary Union  - is dominating political and economic developments in Finland.

Finland has a highly industrialised economy that is fairly diverse, with hi-tech exports - Nokia among them - being among the most profitable. Its per capita output is roughly that of Hong Kong.

Manufacturing dominates the Finnish economy, with engineering, telecommunications and the electronics industries forming a large part of the sector. As for trade, exports equal two-fifths of the gross domestic product.

There are concerns,  particularly among Finnish trade unions, that too much business is heading to the low-cost east, notably China and India.

And this is a challenge that industry heads in Helsinki are trying to address.

Consumer spending is high  and consumer confidence remains strong, despite rising oil prices and lingering global security threats.

Steady growth in private consumption is expected to continue to keep the economy robust in the medium term.

This, coupled with political and socioeconomic stability, means the picture of Finland in the sixth year of the 21st century is one of a small and contented country with big ideas that travel well.



Tech toy has everyone talking