29 What commercial or investment agreements are in place between Israel and Finland? Finland is part of the EU internal market and therefore the EU-Il association Agreement and annexes are the main trade policy background. In addition, Finland and Israel have a double taxation treaty. There is a MoU concerning industrial R&D and a MoU about technology piloting between Helsinki and the Israel Innovation Authority, but these have not really been utilized since 2019 due to the lack of government budgets in Israel. Now that situation has changed, our plan is to revitalize these in 2022! In terms of the level of talent, creativity, technological or entrepreneurial passion, where are the similarities? Great question! Both countries have plenty of great technical universities producing highly talented engineers and developers. I see that we also have a high level of creativity but where in Israel it has lot of emphasis in creative problem solving, Finns are perhaps more famous in design and user-friendly solutions. Which sectors have attracted Israeli entrepreneurs or businesses? Finland has done an excellent job in the secondary use of data in Social and Healthcare and I believe that there are many interesting avenues in knowledge sharing and business opportunities between Israel and Finland. We are organizing plenty of activities in 2022 to connect Finnish health institutions with Israelis regarding R&D collaboration, and also Finnish digital health growth companies with Israeli investors, health companies and other stakeholders. So watch this space! Also, I hope that in near future we will see massive uptick in Finnish CleanTech solutions that will raise lot of interest among Israeli investors and entrepreneurs as now it’s time to act strongly in environmental matters to tackle the climate crises! We caught up with Sami Jääskeläinen, Counsellor, Trade and Investment, Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Finland, and Alon Gold, Senior Advisor in Trade and Economic Affairs at the Finnish Embassy in Tel Aviv.
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