Respected Mr. Kari Ahonen & Ms. Katriina Kuusinen,
Ladies and Gentleman,
Dear friends,
Good afternoon!
First of all, I would like to extend, on behalf of my wife and my colleagues, the warm welcome to our friends from the Finnish Parliament. And I would also like to take this opportunity to wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
During the past year, the Sino-Finnish friendly and cooperative relationship has witnessed new development. The political dialogue between the two countries, including exchanges between the legislative and judicial institutions, has been further deepened. The economic and trade as well as science and technological cooperation has been enhanced. And exchanges in the cultural, educational and other fields have become more active and dynamic.
In particular, after the formulation of the new legislative institutions of our two countries at the beginning of this year, the two sides have carried forward the good tradition of the friendly parliamentary contacts of more than half century, and conducted more frequent and closer contacts and cooperation, which have enhanced the mutual understanding and consolidated the political groundwork for the further development of bilateral relationship.
During the second half of this year, Mr. Luo Gan, Member of the Standing Committee of Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, Mr. Wang Zhongyu, Vice chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and Ms. Wuyun Qimuge, Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress led delegations to Finland and conducted broad contacts with political leaders from the Finnish Parliament and local authorities. The Agricultural and Rural Affairs Committee and the Law Committee of the National People’s Congress of China visited Finland and had comprehensive discussion with their counterparts and conducted some on-the-spot investigation.
At the same time, the First Deputy Speaker of Finnish Parliament Mr. Koskinen paid an informal visit to China and Finnish Parliament also sent 4 young parliamentarians to attend the Asia-Europe Young Parliamentarians’ Meeting in Guilin, China. It is also worth mentioning that there are about 50 parliamentarians in the newly established Finland-China Friendship Group of the Finnish Parliament, which account for one-fourth of the parliamentarians. It fully demonstrates the Finnish Parliamentarians’ keen interests in China. We welcome and expect to have more friends from the Finnish Parliament to visit China.
The friendly Sino-Finnish relationship is not only embodied in the above-mentioned political field but also in the economic and trade areas. In the recently past ten years, the average annual growth rate of Sino-Finnish trade has maintained over 20%. From last January to October, the bilateral trade volume amounted to 2.7 billion US dollars, registering a 22.3% increase over the same period of last year. Finland has become the largest country in terms of China’s export to the Nordic countries, while China is the second largest trade partner of Finland outside Europe.
In terms of investment, some famous Finnish companies like Nokia, StoraEnso, UPM and Kone etc. have all been speeding their investments to China. Till now, the Finnish investment in China is over 3.4 billion US dollars in total. China has become one of the main targeting countries of Finnish investment, with one tenth of Finnish total investment outflow to China. Driven by those large enterprises, quite a few small and medium-sized Finnish enterprises have entered the Chinese market one after another. The Confederation of Finnish Industry and Employers predicts that in the forthcoming five years, the total amount of the Finnish investment to China will be doubled.
All these achievements should be attributed to the friendly cooperation and persistent efforts of all sectors of our two countries. One thing I’d like to mention particularly is that while the visits of the Chinese parliamentary delegations were crowded in last autumn, the Finnish Parliament overcame various difficulties and tried all out to guarantee the success of the visits. We are deeply moved by your efforts. In this regard, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to all of you for your tremendous contribution and diligent efforts in promoting the bilateral cooperation and exchanges between our two countries.

Finally, I would like to propose a toast:
To the further development of the Sino-Finnish friendly relationship,
To the ever-lasting friendship of the two peoples,
And to the health of all friends present here,
Kippis!

Kiitos!