In the Opening Speech Minister Mr Mauri Pekkarinen from Ministry for Trade and Industry pointed out that the trade policy to China should be coordinated on an international level, and he presented a recent EU resolution (10.9.2003) on the subject. He also stressed that the Finnish trade shoud not have more conditionalities than the other competitive countries. Next was the presentation of the study Great Leap Forward – or Backwards? Environmental and Social Impacts of the Finnish Trade with China (found in pdf file here at the Materials) by researcher Ms Ge Yun. She had sent 84 questionnaires to the Finnish companies trading in China but got only 5 responses. So the study had to rely on the publicly available documents. The study showed that though the export trade from Finland to China is small (EUR 2.44 billion 2002) it has a significant impact to the environment in certain areas, notably in forestry. Also according to a recent evaluation by the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs Department for Development Policy the so called concessional credits have had major negative impact on the health sector of China.

The campaign had invited Chinese environmentalist Mr Wen Bo from Pacific Environment, China, to tell about the environmental consequences of the foreign trade. He warned about the worsening state of the environment in China: the floods, the desertification and other environmental problems. He told us also that the environmental damage costs China 5 per cent of its GDP annually.

The following speakers were commenting the previous speeches. First Vice President Mr Ilpo Kaislaniemi from the China and East Asia Section of the Finpro Finland Trade Service Network assured that the Finnish trade with China helps the country to develop in a sustainable and democratic way. The International Coordinator Mr Turo Bergman from the Central Union of the Finnish Trade Unions SAK stated that though the international trade union movement criticizes China having just one official trade union organisation, it however respects the countries' own culture. The chairperson of the Amnesty International Finnish Chapter Mr Petri Merenlahti remined that it is in the companies interest to act ethically, and he promoted the binding standards and criteria for the foreign trade.

Also the big Finnish companies (Kemira, UPM-Kymmene, Nokia) were given an opportunity to comment, but only Nokia sent a written statement where it assured acting ethically, and for example told it was supporting reforestration and prevention of floods in China. However the reluctance of the companies to paricipate in a public debate throws their talks about Corporate Social Responsability in to an odd light.

In the final discussion especially the civil servants from the Ministry or Foreign Affairs were active saying they were convinced that the Finnish companies behave in a responsable way. They also accused NGOs being neo colonialist when bringing these "foreign" ideas of environment and human rights to China. There the organizers had to respond that this seminar was directed to Finnish actors who should have the same code of conduct in environmental and social issues in China as in Finland. Also the chairperson of the seminar, Executive Director Mr Eero Yrjö-Koskinen from the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation wished to give the Chinese an advice not to repeat the mistakes of the West.

In Conclusion one could say that the environmental problems and the violation of the human rights might become a problem for the Finnish companies in China if the problems lead to a revolution. The companies might have the same destiny as the companies in Indonesia in 1997 Asian crisis. For example Finnish company Valmet (present Metso) had sold a paper machine to APRIL company in Riau for a factory that was never build due to financial crisis. Well Metso got its money through export guarantee system from Finnvera, but now the poor Indonesian people are paying it back as their foreign debt. Only accountable export crediting and guaranteeing can prevent such white elephants.

- Coordinator Tove Selin, Finnish ECA Reform Campaign, in 3rd November 2003, Helsinki -

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The Campaign organized a seminar on Human Rights and the World Trade - human rights criteria for export credits on the 3rd of March 2003 in Helsinki, Finland.

The purpose of the seminar was to create and advocate human rights standards and criteria for ECAs and activate Finnish human rights organisations in ECA issues. The main objective was to raise awareness on the human rights violations of the ECA supported projects and the get Finnish human rights NGOs involved in the ECA reform campaign.

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