Helsinki Region Business Center of the New Northern Europe (cover) High Tech Takes Over Helsinki: The Capital City Espoo: High-Tech Hot Spot Vantaa: Logistics Hub and Growing High-Tech Center What Investors are Saying About the Helsinki Region Resource Guide Request Information |
The area surrounding the airport is particularly popular with international companies as a site for distribution centers, warehouses and value-added production bases. Nearby are numerous other international transport firms. Many of them handle the warehousing and onward distribution of products bound for Russia and the Baltic states.
The airport area is also a natural location for air freight terminals. DHL, TNT, FedEx and UPS are all located there, says Jouko Poyhonen, business development manager for the city of Vantaa. Our main focus at present is attracting high-technology and logistics companies.
Overall, we have a very good mixture of businesses in Vantaa, he says. We have logistics, research and development, electronics and industrial automation, plus commercial and retail. There are about 35,000 jobs in the airport area, and 80,000 in the entire city.
The biggest new project in the Vantaa area is Aviapolis, a business park being launched in 2000 that is projected to eventually provide at least 4.3 million sq. ft. (400,000 sq. m.) of office and industrial space. The design of Aviapolis incorporates ideas from the Netherlands, where a flourishing international business park has grown up near Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. Aviapolis is being developed by NCC, a leading firm that developed Stella and Spektri, two leading business parks in Espoo.
From Helsinki-Vantaa Airport, most key western European cities are only two to three hours away. A flight to St. Petersburg, Russia, takes just 45 minutes, and Moscow is less than an hour and a half away.
Many distant places are closer than one might expect. Due to the globes spherical shape, Japan and the U.S. West Coast can be reached faster from Helsinki than from continental Europe.
The Helsinki regions sea connections are also excellent. Regular cargo shipments go out to some 50 foreign ports. Helsinki has three main harbors, plus two smaller ones. All these harbors are open year-round, even during the winter.
Rail is another strength for the region, particularly in connection with Russia. Finlands railroad system has its origins in the 19th century, when the country was part of the Czars empire. As a result, the same gauge was used, and today that means trains can go anywhere in Finland to anywhere in Russia without changing chassis or wheels. Rail service to St. Petersburg and Moscow is quick and convenient.
Road transport between the Helsinki region and Russia is also excellent. In fact, the EUs only border crossing into Russia is via Finland. Hundreds of trucks cross the border into Russia each day on European Transport Road E18.
Significantly, information can move into those new markets as reliably as manufactured goods. Finland has built fiber-optic connections to Moscow, St. Petersburg and under the Gulf of Finland to Tallinn, Estonia.
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A US$102 million third runway, to be completed in 2002, will allow the airport to handle twice as many passengers as the roughly 10 million who passed through it last year. Another key project is a new passenger railway linking the airport and Helsinki city center, slated to open before 2010.
The Helsinki regions strategic location in northern Europe is boosted by excellent transportation connections.