Top > Business > 2005 > October > 2005-10-27

Finns are competitve and successful

Fifty years ago, Finland was known for little more than the wood pulp from its endless forests. A poverty-stricken land of poorly educated loggers and farmers on the edge of the Arctic Circle, few paid it any attention. Today, this small Nordic nation boasts a thriving hi-tech economy ranked the most competitive in the world, the best educated citizenry of all the industrialized countries, and a welfare state that has created one of the globe",s most egalitarian societies. Reporters Without Borders ranks Finland (and several other countries) number 1 for freedom of the press. The US ranks 22nd.

As the leaders of other European countries desperately seek ways to preserve their expensive systems of social protection in a competitive globalized world, Finland`s circumstances and mind-set aren`t easily copied, though analysts are surely trying to learn from Helsinki. Other European countries could copy Finland",s efforts to improve its education system some people insist, though, just as they could emulate Finland`s heavy investment in research and development. The world`s number 1 cellphone maker, Nokia, is based in Finland. It holds 32 percent of the global cellphone market.

After running budget surpluses for a decade, Finland is one of the countries best equipped to meet the challenges of an aging population, globalization. Still, the conditions for a flourishing economy are so demanding that the state has to make social investments to raise competent people and take care of dropouts so that they carry their share of the burden.