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Finland and Sweden to deepen collaboration at a Forest Conference in Hanaholmen

Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
Publication date 17.4.2018 7.27
Press release

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry organises a Finnish-Swedish Forest Conference in Hanaholmen, Espoo on 17-18 April. The purpose of the conference is to thank Sweden for the gift in honour of Finland’s 100 years of independence and to further enhance Finnish-Swedish cooperation in research and innovation and in forest policy.

To honour the centenary of Finland’s independence, Sweden donated 12 two-year post-doctoral positions for forest research and research on new forest-industry processes and products. A good number of applications have been submitted to the programme entitled Tandem Forest Values, and these are now being evaluated. Thanks to the gift, forest cooperation between the countries will become even closer.

At the Forest Friends Forever Conference in Hanaholmen on 17–18 April cooperation projects already under way will be presented. In addition, new initiatives will be discussed by which Finland and Sweden could through joint action further improve the efficiency of innovation activities relating to the bioeconomy and create markets for new forest bioeconomy products. The organisations that will tell about the cooperation include the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and its sister organisation RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, which aim to make even better joint use of the mutually complementary expertise and infrastructures. There is close cooperation between the Natural Resources Institute Finland and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences as well.

Jari Leppä, Minister of Agriculture and Forestry of Finland, and Sven-Erik Bucht, Minister for Rural Affairs of Sweden, will also be speaking at the conference. The event will be attended by almost a hundred Finnish and Swedish experts, policy-makers and financers dealing with the forest sector.

Sweden and Finland are Europe’s largest and most significant forest countries, which is why friendship and collaboration between the countries in forest issues is most beneficial. Both countries are also moving towards a carbon-neutral society where products based on fossil raw materials are being replaced by products derived from renewable natural resources. Research and development obviously have a key role in this kind of systemic change that aims for a sustainable economic growth and mitigating climate change.

Conference programme: Finland and Sweden Forest Friends Forever – Finnish-Swedish Forest Conference

Inquiries at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry:
Liisa Saarenmaa, Deputy Director-General, tel. +358 295 162 429, [email protected]

Bioeconomy EU and international affairs Forests Jari Leppä Research and development
 
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