Representatives of 25 Finnish businesses will accompany Prime Minister Matti Vahanen during his visit to Vietnam from Nov. 15-17, according to the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
The Finnish companies are major players in clean energy, environment, metal and engineering, mining, information technology and telecoms, finance and banking, education, health care, chemistry, oil refinery, construction, forest plantation and real estate.
A Vietnam-Finland Business Forum is scheduled to be held on Nov. 17 in Ho Chi Minh City to help Finnish companies find Vietnamese partners as well as trade and investment opportunities.
According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, trade and investment cooperation between Vietnam and Finland saw good progress in recent years with annually growth between 20-40 percent.
In 2008, two-way trade turnover hit almost 240 million USD, a 40 percent increase over the previous year with Vietnam enjoying a trade surplus.
Vietnam exports rubber, footwear, garment and textiles, fine arts and handicrafts, woodworks, bicycles and spare parts to Finland and imports machines, information facilities, materials for garment and textiles and footwear, plastic and steels.
In the first ten months of this year, Finland had five investment projects licensed in Vietnam valued at 33 million USD, ranking 51 st among 89 foreign investors./.