Anne-Mari Virolainen, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development, Finland, who visited India in mid-December, to forge new partnerships with India in emerging areas such as artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and cybersecurity, along with traditional sectors of pulp, paper, and heavy industrial machinery.
“We [recently] signed a memorandum of understanding for ‘Innovation Corridor’ between Finland and the State of Karnataka. We have many MoUs as we plan to broaden bilateral collaboration. Other new areas we have identified are cybersecurity, environmental space, geological survey, vocational education and tourism,” Virolainen explained.
“We also brought a [delegation] of small and medium-sized companies with us and they had discussions with their counterparts. Business Finland signed an MoU with India’s Department of Biotechnology for research cooperation. We are also looking to collaborate for IT-based healthcare.
The message I got from the [Finnish] companies is that they trust this market. They want to stay here and grow. There is a very positive thing about India: you have so many highly talented people,” Virolainen noted.
