OREANDA-NEWS. October 06, 2010. Head of Karelia Andrei Nelidov has discussed prospects of Karelian-Finnish cooperation with Eino Siuruainen, special representative of Finland's Minister of Employment and the Economy.

Eino Siuruainen has been to our republic many times. From 1992 to 2009 he held the post of the governor of Oulu, and it was also a period of active development of cooperation between the province of Oulu and Karelia. Within the scope of this cooperation successful joint ventures were created, Suopera international automobile customs station was put into operation, fibre-optical communication line from Kuhmo to Kostomuksha was laid, significant social, humanitarian and technical assistance was rendered to northern regions of Karelia, etc. For his great contribution to development and strengthening of friendly relations between Russia and Finland in 2008 by the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation Eino Siuruainen was awarded the Order of Friendship, and in 2010 the rank of the Honourable Citizen of the Republic of Karelia was confered on him.

This time Eino Siuruainen has visited Karelia as a special representative of the Finnish Ministry of Labour and Entrepreneurship. His main task is to find new forms of co-operation between Finland and Russia. First of all, matters concern frontier regions of our country. Eino Siuruainen has already visited constitutional entities of the Federation, including Moscow, Murmansk and Archangelsk regions. On results of these trips there will be prepared a detailed report for the Government of Finland which may become a part of the concept for development of the entire Northern Europe in the next ten years.

In his conversation with Eino Siuruainen Head of Karelia Andrei Nelidov has stated three priorities of joint activities. The main of them is cooperation in the sphere of housing and communal services. As Andrei Nelidov has noted, such expensive imported resources as gas, black oil, and coal are very seldom used for heating in Finnish towns and settlements. Instead of it Finns use accessible local kinds of fuel – peat and brushwood. This technology was implemented in Finland within the past 50 years.

Climate and environment conditions in Karelia and in Finland are identical, and it means that our neighbours have already got ready and approved solutions for many of our problems. To transfer Finnish experience to the land of Karelia it is possible to use so-called long loans paid back in 20-25 years due to investment component of the tariff. Besides, it will be becessary to train local personnel and reconstruct existing networks to avoid any heat-wasting. As this project has an ecological component, it may gain support within the scope of the Barents Cooperation.

The second priority mentioned by Andrei Nelidov is development of forestry, first of all, due to increase in volumes and quality of deep processing of wood. There are positive examples of such cooperation, however, this is not enough for Karelian forest industry to achieve a new level.

The third priority of joint activities is tourism. In Andrei Nelidov's opinion, southern resort tourism has already almost exhausted its potential. Wherever the person comes he or she finds the same standard set of services. However, the potential of northern tourism just starts to reveal its potential and has good prospects. "Karelia is a pearl of the Northwest, and we do not want to develop it only as an industrial region, – Head of the republic has emphasized. – Beauty of such fantastic places as Kalevala may emmarvel any European."

Having pointed out priorities, Andrey Nelidov has emphasized, that all the other areas for cooperation, for example, in the sphere of IT-technologies, will be also preserved.

Along with the abovementioned topics, Head of Karelia has raised a point of establishing a Finnish technopark in the republic. This idea has appeared 3 years ago, and a site was allocated to establish the technopark. However, since then the Finnish investor did not show any activity and almost did not get in touch. Karelia is still interested in implementation of this project.

Eino Siuruainen has pointed out that all priorities of cooperation development between Karelia and Finland mentioned by Andrei Nelidov seem right and realistic to him, and promise improvement in quality of people's life in the long term. For example, in the sphere of housing and communal services it is possible to launch many projects in the near future. As for the tourism, the visitor said that currently Oulu is engaged in attraction of tourist flow from two Chinese sister-provinces of the former province of Oulu, and it is possible to consider the opportunity of Karelia's participation in this project. "Meanwhile, we do not even need to invent any special program – snow, white silence, polar lights are already exotic to our visitors," – Eino Siuruainen said.