Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s Room for Growth project to host discussion event on 19 November

Prime Minister Petteri Orpo has launched the Room for Growth project to come up with ideas for new ways to boost economic growth. As part of the project, a discussion event will be held on Tuesday 19 November at 15.00–16.30 at Aalto University. The event will be streamed live and released as a recording on the government video service.

The event will focus on how we can attract more growing companies to Finland and how companies can boost their growth here. What are Finland’s strengths and how can we develop them further to increase the attractiveness of Finland as a location and support companies’ growth in Finland? 

“Economic growth means work and wellbeing for people in Finland. Our Government Programme is a growth programme. In our spending limits discussion last spring, we made several decisions that support growth. However, we still need new tools and ideas to boost slow growth, and that is what we are looking for now,” says Prime Minister Petteri Orpo. 

The discussion event will bring together experts and stakeholders, economic organisations and students with a variety of perspectives on how to promote the Finnish business sector and create favourable conditions for growth. Prime Minister Orpo and Risto Murto, chair of the expert group leading the Room for Growth project, will also attend the event. 

The discussion will be moderated by CEO of Slush Aino Bergius.

The theme of the first discussion will be“Why invest in Finland?” and its keynote speaker will be Mark Bula, CEO of the Norwegian company Blastr Green Steel, which is developing a value chain for low-emission steel.

Managing Director Matthias Krieger from the Finnish biomedical company FinVector and CEO of Ren-Gas Saara Kujala will also take part in the panel discussion. The Kuopio-based biomedical plant FinVector is well-known for innovations in cancer treatment. Ren-Gas, Finland’s leading project developer for the hydrogen economy, is building a decentralised production network for renewable e-methane in Finland. 

The theme of second discussion will be “How to grow in Finland”, and its keynote speaker will be 
Timo Ahopelto, founder of the Finnish early-stage investment firm Lifeline Ventures.

He will be joined on the panel by three other growth experts. Jarna Hyvönen is Chief Commercial Officer at the start-up company Volare, which aims to create a circular global food system by processing food industry side streams into protein, oil and fertilisers. Mikko Kärkkäinen is a co-founder and CEO of RELEX, a platform that offers solutions for optimising the supply chains of retail and consumer goods. Monika Liikamaa is a co-founder and CEO of Enfuce. Founded in 2016, Enfuce was the first company in the world to put payment processing into the public cloud. 

The Room for Growth project has opened an online survey to collect proposals for boosting growth. The proposals gathered in the survey will be submitted to the expert group leading the project. The survey is open to the public and will be available from 28 October to 24 November.

Inquiries: Pekka Sinko, Secretary General of the Economic Council, tel. +358 295 160 189 and Heli Suominen, Head of Communications, tel. +358 50 479 3766, Prime Minister’s Office.

The email addresses of the Finnish Government are in the format [email protected]