Finnish companies eye participation in Kazakhstan's public tenders

By Trend

Many Finnish companies are currently re-evaluating the internationalization plans due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a source in Finland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Trend.

The official said that focus areas for Finnish businesses in Kazakhstan are energy, cleantech, digitalization and education.

"For instance, in education, the last few years have seen an opening of an innovative school called High Tech Academy in Almaty, which is based on Finnish pedagogy, as well as implementation of education development projects in Kazakhstan by Finnish institutions of higher education. The economic cooperation in the field of education has successfully continued in 2020," the official said.

However, talking the measures that companies are planning on taking to further strengthen this economic cooperation the source said that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many Finnish companies are currently re-evaluating the internationalization plans.

Official also said that currently a number of Finnish companies are interested in participating in public tenders and project implementation in Kazakhstan.

The official also noted that the trade relations are supported on the political level by the Finland-Kazakhstan Intergovernmental Commission, whose meetings are organized biannually.

"In addition, the interest of companies are represented at the EU-Kazakhstan High Level Platform, which was founded in 2019 to promote dialogue on economic and business matters. The platform brings together the EU Delegation, head of missions, European companies and the Kazakh government. Moreover, the Embassy of Finland in Nur-Sultan and the Business Finland office in Almaty assist Finnish companies working and interested in the Kazakh market in a number of ways," the official said.