Chinese direct investment on the rise also in Finland

BOFIT Viikkokatsaus / BOFIT Weekly Review 2016/18

Foreign direct investment outflows from China have enjoyed strong growth for over ten years, but the investment pace this year seems to have kicked into high gear. China’s commerce ministry reports that outward FDI flow in the first quarter of 2016 was up over 50 % y-o-y. Media coverage of planned acquisitions indicates that the trend will continue. China’s government supports companies through such measures as providing financing for acquisition of foreign firms.

Chinese investors earlier generally paid little attention to Finland, but over the past year interest in Finnish companies has soared. The Chinese National Silicon Industry Group is acquiring the Finnish silicon wafer maker Okmetic for about €150 million. JOT Automation, a company focused on production automation and testing, was bought by the Chinese Wuxi Lead Intelligent Equipment for €74 million. The Chinese HNA Tourism Group announced last week it was purchasing Carlson Hotels and the deal includes the multinational Radisson Hotel chain, which operates in Finland. The Chinese Kaidi, which is specialised in environmentally friendly power facilities, is designing the Kemi biofuel power plant, currently contemplated as a €1 billion project.

Earlier large investment projects that remain active include Huawei’s Finnish research and development centre for mobile device technologies and Finnish commercial ship designer Deltamarin, which has been Chinese-owned since 2012. Both investments are on the order of tens of millions of euros. The Chinese companies have also made many smaller investments and Chinese representative offices have been opened in Finland.

China’s inward and outward FDI flows
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Source: China Ministry of Commerce

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