More than half of the fledgling firms involved with EnterpriseHelsinki are started by people with immigrant backgrounds. The agency hopes they will bring more concrete ideas for technologies and inventions with export potential, rather than just adding to the ocean of services.
Helsinki aims to be Finland’s most entrepreneur-friendly city by 2016. On Wednesday the city-run EnterpriseHelsinki unit opened a new service centre in the Kallio neighbourhood, called Enterprise Castle. It aims to improve cooperation between the private sector and city and state agencies in order to encourage business start-ups. More than half of the fledgling firms involved with EnterpriseHelsinki are run by people with immigrant backgrounds.
“People representing more than 100 nationalities have taken part in our counselling services. The largest groups are Russians and Estonians,” says Enterprise Castle director Timo Onnela.
EnterpriseHelsinki receives more than 3,000 new customers annually, of whom about 40 percent go on to set up their own firms. People with Russian citizenship or background start up about 100 new companies in the city each year.
“For those who leave Russia for international trade, Helsinki is a much better address. Here there is better infrastructure and services for Russian firms than in their own country, so there are better chances to succeed,” says Onnela.
Russians based in Helsinki gain an entryway into the West, but Finland also benefits from immigrant entrepreneurs, says Onnela. He says there are many good business ideas emanating from Russia.
“If these companies make it internationally, they can also employ Finns and bring income into Finland. This is not a question of Russians coming in and taking over Finland.” (more)
Read the Whole story: http://yle.fi/uutiset/helsinki_needs_more_fresh_ideas_from_foreign_entrepreneurs/7450485
Source: YLE