Björn Wahlroos - Suomen haasteet uudessa maailmantaloudessa | Jaakko Honko -luento 30.9.2021

Björn Wahlroosin luento Suomen talouden tulevaisuudesta Aalto-yliopistolla 30.9.2021 * Tekstitykset saa auki videon asetuksista * In English: Finland faces great challenges in the new world economy The Jaakko Honko lecture was given by Björn Wahlroos, whose topic was The Pandemic and Structural Problems – Finland's challenges in the new world economy. However, at the beginning he changed his lecture's title to “Why does socialism not work ever, or anywhere?” Björn Wahlroos said that he is mystified at how little attention has been paid to the fact that Finland is experiencing its 13th year of zero growth (as measured by per capita GDP). ‘Per capita GDP has hardly changed from it was in 2008. We have 13 years of zero growth behind us and in the future, Finland is on a path for growth of 1% or 1.5% a year. Of course, there are natural reasons for this underachievement, such as Nokia, which became a mirror image of its success story in 2008–2010, turning into a great damper on the development of Finnish GDP. At about the same time the prospects of growth for paper as an export product turned negative. These structural changes should be kept in mind. On the other hand, in 1991 we lost our trade with the Soviet Union, which is something that we did not boast about. Nevertheless, we rose out of that disaster.’ According to Wahlroos. Finnish business has become more international in an interesting manner. ‘Whereas Swedish engineering companies have succeeded in keeping production and product development in Sweden, we have globalised that activity heavy-handedly. In building a new economy we are, if we use R&D investments as a measure, very far from where we should be.’ Wahlroos also does not see future prospects as very bright. ‘The greatest individual factors in investments of the past 12 years are one nuclear power plant, which is still not in operation, and a couple of large pulp mills. Similar developments are in store for us. I consider it evident that the Finnish government will solve Finland's emissions problem by shutting down the Raahe steel mill.’ ‘Furthermore, the cost structure of the Finnish forest industry in paper manufacture is pitiful. There will be no more investments in papermaking machinery, as none is being built in Europe. In Finland we have shut down machines that are technically superior to the ones that we are using in Germany. The reason for this is that the costs of logistics and energy are higher here than they are in Germany,’ Wahlroos said. Lähteet Teksti: https://www.aalto.fi/en/news/finlands-cost-competitiveness-is-poor-says-bjorn-wahlroos-in-jaakko-honko-lecture Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppN8-GWvvlk&ab_channel=AaltoUniversity