During his stay in Qinhuangdao, Mr. Iipo Kaislaniemi met Mr. Wang Yazhou, duputy head of the Administrative Committee for Qinhuangdao Economic and Technical Development Zone and major officials from the Investment Promotion Bureau of the Development Zone. He also looked around for the general situation and facilities in the Zone and visited a German SME which had an office there. Mr. Wang briefed the situation of Qinhuangdao Development Zone and pointed out the following strengths Qinhuangdao holds for investors:
a. Sufficient supply of water and electricity at a very low rate of charge;
b. Adequate cheap supply of labor and professionals;
c. Convenient transport. Q inhuangdao port has a handling capacity of 120 million tons. Expressways connect to Beijing and Shenyang directly. It takes only 150 minutes to go to Beijing. The latter half of this year will witness the start of the construction of the expressway connecting Qinhuangdao with Tianjin. Intercity railways to Beijing and Shenyang are under construction. When completed, it will take less than three hours and a half to both cities from Qinhuangdao.
d. Cheap construction cost. Qinhuangdao enjoys an excellent geological location, situated on an independent plate structure. It also produces a lot of raw materials for construction such as iron, steel and cement.
e. An enabling environment for investors. Local governments are always at service for foreign investors to facilitate their business.

　　Mr. Yao Zhihong, deputy director of Investment Promotion Bureau tabled in great detail his ideas on building Qinhuangdao into a papermaking base in northern China and on attracting Finnish papermaking companies to invest and start business there.

　　Mr. Iipo Kaislaniemi said that over years Finnish Trade Association has been engaged in the southern and eastern coastal parts of China. It knows very little about northern China. He felt very happy that through this visit he had known so much about Qinhuangdao Development Zone, which was beyond his expectation. The environment in the Development Zone and supportive policies are quite attractive to foreign companies. When going back, he would refer the information he got to Finnish companies.

　　In the afternoon on February 25th, Mr. Iipo Kaislaniemi held a meeting with Mr. Sun Tongquan, deputy division chief and contact person for the Chinese side and Ms. Tian Yuanshi, programme officer.

　　Based on the agreement reached at the second Working Group meeting (held on November 25th, 2003), they discussed the activities to be carried out this year, including:

　　A. The Chinese side hopes that its counterpart can prepare as soon as possible a name list and their brief information of Finnish enterprises to participate in the APEC-SME Trade Fair which will be held in Tsingdao and the activities they would like to be arranged during their stay. The Chinese side proposed a bilateral SME Cooperative Seminar during the Trade Fair. The Finnish side said that they would fully cooperate and would provide such a name list by the end of March. Given to the consideration that Major political figures from different countries will be invited to the Tsingdao meeting, Mr.Iipo Kaislaniemi planned to invite a former Finnish senior official to come to Tsingdao to give remarks.

　　B. Both sides agreed to try to organize the third Working Group meeting in Tsingdao or Beijing during the stay of the Finnish Enterprises Delegation.

　　C. The Chinese side introduced the intent of cooperation and willingness to attract foreign investment of Anshan and Ningbo cities. The Finnish side agreed to pass on the information to Finnish companies. Because all the business investment materials were in Chinese, Mr. Iipo Kaislaniemi hoped to communicate in English through email. He expressed willingness to visit these cities next time if possible.

　　D. In order to facilitate communication and information sharing, the Chinese side has already set up a webpage: www. Cicete.org/zf/zf.htm and related Chinese and Finnish websites have been connected. Mr.Iipo Kaislaniemi said that the Chinese side has been ahead of the agenda. He provided several Finnish trade and technical websites and expressed his willingness to connect this webpage to that of Finnish Trade Association.

　　F. The Chinese side asked about the study-visit of the Chinese embassy in Finland to the Finnish SMEs. The Finnish side said that some of these companies would attend the Tsingdao Trade Fair.

　　During talks, Mr. Sun Tongquan also asked about the basic information of the Finnish SMEs in China and services provided by Finnish Trade Association and its ways of delivering these services.

　　Mr.Iipo Kaislaniemi introduced the areas that interest Finnish enterprises. They are mainly:

a. Timber processing and wooden products processing;
b. Computer technology and electronic products;
c. Water treatment and protection, environmental protection techniques;
d. Industrial processing and transports in the cold climate of winter;
e. Beijing-Olympics-related projects;
f. Other cooperative projects.

　　Finnish enterprises hope to find new cooperative partners in the above-mentioned areas and to discover new and develop a better distribution channel. Finnish Trade Association plans to send questionnaires to some enterprises to get detailed needs from them.

　　At the meeting, Mr.Iipo Kaislaniemi also mentioned that Mr. Erkki Virtanen, State Secretary of Finland Trade and Industry Ministry will visit China in the middle of May and the Minister for Trade and Industry plans to visit China in September.

　　After the meeting, Mr. Wang Yue, chairman of China-Finland SME Working Group for the Chinese side and Director General of CICETE received Mr.Iipo Kaislaniemi. Mr. Wang Yue extended his welcome to Mr.Iipo Kaislaniemi's visit and thanked him for his efforts to promote bilateral SME cooperation and would like Mr.Iipo Kaislaniemi to extend his greetings to Mr. Antti Peltoniemi, Finnish chairman and other colleagues working in the Ministry of Trade and Industry. Mr.Iipo Kaislaniemi said that he would bring the greeting of Mr. Wang Yue back to Finland. The Chinese side is ahead of the Finnish. The Finnish side will accelerate its pace.