Finnish President Alexander Stubb on Thursday had exchanges with students at Shanghai's Fudan University and attended the Finland-China Business Summit before wrapping up his four-day visit to China.
At the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping, Stubb paid a state visit to China from Oct 28 to 31.
During his stay in Beijing, President Xi held talks with Stubb, and Premier Li Qiang and National People's Congress Standing Committee Chairman Zhao Leji also met with him respectively to exchange views on bilateral relations and issues of common concern.
Stubb and his delegation arrived in Shanghai on Wednesday. On Thursday morning, he visited Fudan University where he met with faculty members, local students and exchange students from Finland.
The event at Fudan University focused on topics like global affairs, higher education, people-to-people exchanges and other topics for the future cooperation between the two countries. Students attending the event were eager to participate and share their perspectives on today's world and China, as well as ways to strengthen the ties between the two sides.
"[I'm] very excited to hear what he has to say. I'm very happy that he wants to connect with the students here. I enjoy studying here a lot. The quality of education is very good. After I finish my semester here, I will go back to Finland and finish my bachelor's degree. If I get the chance, I will definitely come back," said Elsa Palmen, a Finnish exchange student at Fudan University.
On Thursday afternoon, Stubb attended a high-level business summit with over 80 Chinese and Finnish entrepreneurs, alongside high-level leaders from his Finnish business delegation.
"I really appreciate the welcome that I've had as president, and with the 25 companies. And I think I can speak for all of us coming from Finland that it's simply been an eye-opening four days," said the Finnish president.
A panel discussion was held between the Chinese and Finnish entrepreneurs on topics including green energy, future investment directions, and the bilateral partnership and cooperation.
"If you look at our joint collaboration, there's actually over 300 Finish companies that have invested into their operations in the China market, and the Finish companies employ over 70,000 people here in China, and the annual business that it generates is over 16 billion euros, meaning 100 billion RMB annually. At the same time, the Chinese companies have also invested into Finland. There are over 50 leading Chinese companies doing that. As part of our Elematic strategy, so what we have identified the China market is one of the key focus markets where we see an opportunity for us to grow and work with the Chinese construction companies," said Teppo Voutilainen, CEO of Elematic, a leading Finnish company in precast concrete production technology.
"Today I think the Chinese and the Finnish entrepreneurs in one room, they're having a lot of very solid discussions. It's not about meeting each other, it's about figuring out how to collaborate and achieve really good results. Climate change is a long-term trend, and this is an area that we should take very seriously. And there are a lot of business opportunities as well. We're very much backing the best Chinese entrepreneurs as they go global. I think we start to find common ground, that's the starting point. But then we should build more common ground going forward," said Patrick Zhong, founding managing partner of the global investment firm M31 Capital.
Finnish president meets students, entrepreneurs in Shanghai
Finnish president meets students, entrepreneurs in Shanghai
