About Finland
Economy
A Country with Strong Competetive Edge
Finland is a welfare state with the aim of securing for its 5,2 million inhabitants equal opportunities for a good life and for the most efficient use of its resources as possible.
Finland’s investment in Research & Development as a percentage of GDP is among the highest in the world. In 2003, the International Institute for Management Development ranked Finland as world's most competitive country with a population under 20 million people.
Finland joined the European Monetary Union in 1999 and its economic base lies in export. The three major export sectors are electronics, other metal industry products and the timber and paper industries. (Most of the world’s leading newspapers are printed on Finnish paper). A fourth major export area is the chemical industry. Finland is also one of Europe’s leading biotech countries. The close cooperation between universities and both bio- and technological centres of excellence is one of the defining characteristics of Finnish companies.
When it comes to information technology, Finland is certainly a super power. The World Economic Forum has listed Finland as the leading country in the world in this field. Finland has one of the world’s densest concentration of mobile phones and nearly 61% of the 15-75 years old have their own e-mail addresses.
Finnish industry success stories include the following companies which rank first in the world in their fields; Nokia in telecommunications, Kone as a lift and escalator manufacturer, Metso Paper Inc–the supplier of technology, systems and equipment for the pulp, paper and converting industries and paper company UPM-Kymmene.
Why Study in Finland?
Free Education: Most of the Universities and Polytechnics do not charge any fee from students.
Plenty of choice: Finnish universities and polytechnics offer over 400 international study programmes in different disciplines taught in English.
Internationally compatible degrees: All programmes are based on a joint European credit transfer system (ECTS), which facilitates international transparency and recognition of Finnish degrees at a global level.
More than just studying: Studying in Finland offers also an insight into the culture of Finland and the country's two official languages, Finnish and Swedish, all of which are unique in many ways. Finnish society is egalitarian and well-organised: it provides a solid foundation for the development of modern, internationally-oriented higher education.
A challenging language, but easy to pronounce: Finnish is spoken by approximately 92% of Finns, and Swedish is spoken as a native language by 5,5% of the population
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