Finland is an important trading partner for Russia. Russian-Finnish trade (according to the Federal Customs Service of Russia) totaled about $13 billion in 2009 (it was $22.4 billion in 2008), $9.1 billion in exports and $3.9 billion in imports. Russia has a trade surplus of $5.2 billion with Finland.
Finland's share in Russia's foreign trade is 2.8% (compared with 3% in 2008). Finland is the 12th biggest trade partner of Russia and the 6th biggest trade partner among EU members (11th and 5th respectively, in 2008).
According to 2009 data, Russia is still the number one trade partner for Finland with a 12.5% share (13.9% in 2008). Russia is the number one export partner (16.2%) and number three partner (after Germany and Sweden) in terms of imports (9%).
Russian-Finnish trade in the first quarter of 2010 was at $3.9 billion, up 29.8% on the same period of 2009 ($3 billion), according to the Federal Customs Service of Russia The increase is primarily due to growing Russian exports which increased 39.5% (to $3.13 billion versus $2.24 billion in January-March 2009) whereas imports from Finland increased by a mere 1.1% ($768 million versus $760 million). Finland's share in Russia's foreign trade in the first quarter of 2010 was 3.3%.
Russian exports to Finland are dominated by the following groups of commodities: energy (70.2%), semi-processed goods (8.9%), chemicals (5.2%), various types of raw materials (4.7%, of which raw timber accounts for 3.7%); machines, equipment and means of transport (1.5%). Imports include: machines, equipment and means of transport (40.7%), chemicals (21.4%), semi-processed goods (17%, of which paper, cardboard and paper/cardboard products account for 9.6%) and foodstuffs (6.7%).
At the end of 2009 accumulated Finnish investment in Russia stood at $3 billion, with $1.9 billion in direct investment, for 1.75% of all foreign direct investments in Russia. Finland is the 11th largest investor in Russia. By comparison, at the end of 2008 accumulated Finnish investments in Russia was $2.1 billion (1.7%, 8th place).
At the same time Russia is the seventh biggest Finnish investment destination abroad, accounting for 3% of investments (sixth place with 3.4% in 2008). According to the Bank of Finland, investments amount to €2.25 billion (€2.46 billion in 2008).
The Finnish Government action programme for Russia puts the aggregate accumulated direct investment figure at 5 billion euros.
The biggest share of direct Finnish investments (96.7%) is concentrated in the Northwestern (73.8%) and Central (22.9%) federal districts. The bulk of investments are in St Petersburg (41%) and the Leningrad Region (about 20%).
The largest Finnish investment project is the acquisition by the company Fortum of a controlling stake (75%) in the Russian generating company TGK-10 in Western Siberia in 2008. Fortum, a public company, is currently building new power units at the Chelyabinsk Thermal Power Plant TETS-3 and at the Tyumen TETS-1 and turbines for the Tobolsk TETS.
The biggest Russian direct investments in Finland are: the acquisition of a 25% stake in the Gasum concern, the Finnish gas monopoly, by Gazprom in 1994; in 2001 the former office of Ingosstrakh was transformed into insurance company IngoNord; in 2002 the company RAO Nordic was created as a subsidiary of OAO INTER RAO UES to sell Russian electricity to Northern Europe; some of the largest Finnish petroleum product traders, the companies Teboil and Suomen Petrooli were sold by the company Nafta Moskva to Lukoil; in 2007 Nickel Harjavalta was acquired by Norilsk Nickel from the American owner of the company Harjavalta Nickel.
The Russian-Finnish Inter-Governmental Commission for Economic Cooperation has been active through the inter-governmental Agreement On Trade and Economic Cooperation of 1992. In between sessions the Commission's cochairs (the Minister of Economic Development, Elvira Nabiullina, from the Russian side and the Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Paavo Varyrynen from Finland) have regular meetings. The last, 11th Session of the IGC was held in Helsinki on April 14, 2010 (the 10th Session was held in Moscow on March 20, 2009).
Vladimir Putin met with leading Finnish businessmen in St Petersburg on March 22 this year.