Close Cooperation

Waqar Naseem Wamiq Saudi Arabia and Finland enjoy friendly relations for decades. Diplomatic relations between the two countries were established in 1969, since then their relations have grown stronger. Over the years, Finland has extended its support on all levels to Saudi Arabia whether its education, health or energy sectors and Saudi Arabia has responded in kind. Under Secretary of State, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland Ms. Sipiläinen Anne Marjaana, during her recent visit of Saudi Arabia, said: “Finland warmly welcomed the Saudi Vision 2030 and appreciated this great vision and leadership of King Salman.” These were the excerpts from an exclusive interview to Saudi Gazette by the Under Secretary of State, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland, Ms. Sipiläinen Anne Marjaana, during her recent visit of Saudi Arabia, Sipiläinen made this statement in an exclusive interview with Saudi Gazette at Finland Ambassador Pekka Voutilainen’s residence in Riyadh. Sipiläinen was appointed to this post in 2011, Sipiläinen a career diplomat, had worked at the Finnish EU Mission in Brussels, where she served as Ambassador responsible for the EU’s joint foreign and security policy and as Finland’s representative to the EU’s Political and Security Committee (COPS) since 2007. Her main role as the undersecretary at MOFA Finland is to maintain development cooperation and to create development policies. Sipiläinen was accompanied by her associate Ms. Kirsikka Lehto-Asikainen, director, department for Africa and the Middle East MOFA Finland, Ms. Johanna Jokinen-Gavidia, deputy head of Mission, Ms. Laila Clyne, desk officer of the Gulf Region, Department for Africa and the Middle East, Ms. Petronella Lehtela and other embassy officials. Here is the full text of the interview. SG: What is the agenda of your current visit of Saudi Arabia? Sipiläinen: We are on our regular visit of the Kingdom and meeting with various authorities including ministerial level especially the Majlis-e-Shoura members in order to be in contact and to intensify and boost our bilateral relations, personally it’s my first visit of Saudi Arabia. SG: Could you please tell us about the relations between Saudi Arabia and Finland? Sipiläinen: We have strong bilateral relations with Saudi Arabia and they are growing stronger with the passage of time. We are friendly countries with several mutual agreements and in order to keep the momentum of our relations, recently, Finnish trade minister visited the Kingdom last November and Saudi Arabia’s Minister of education is currently on his visit of Finland. We have several projects in our pipeline to intensify our best relations. SG: Could you please tell us in details about those projects? Sipiläinen: There are several projects especially in the areas where we wish to do more like education sector, health sector for preventive health technology. In mining sector there is very close contact between the both authorities for geological survey. Especially now the very important from our part is to underline the importance and plans of reforms in form of Vision 2030 of Saudi Arabia. That coincides very well with one of the key expertise areas of Finland like renewable energy, water, and green technology in general. SG: Finland is supporting Saudi Vision 2030? Sipiläinen: Yes, we had a discussion on that and I understood that there would be more details on the implementation coming out soon. SG: What do you say about the trade ties between the two countries? Sipiläinen: They are actually already on a quite good level, the level of our trade is around 1 billion euros but still I believe there is lot of room for improvement. Our areas of interests in Saudi Arabia are health, education and energy sectors and we are well focused on them. SG: We understand the Finnish support to Saudi Arabia, what about Saudi Arabian support to Finland. Please highlight those areas? Sipiläinen: It’s very much on the mutual interests, especially the mining sector, energy sector and it’s perhaps like today I think it’s very important also to have discussion when it comes to e.g. regional developments, various crisis, security policies, we exchange our views and information mutually. SG: Saudi Arabia is one of the biggest oil exporters in the world, is Finland benefiting from the Saudi oil sector? Voutilainen: In my opinion Finland’s companies should buy crude from Saudi Arabia but that’s not for the government to decide but only for the private sector companies, I wish Finnish companies should buy crude from Saudi Arabia, which they don’t do at the moment. SG: “They don’t do at the moment”, what are the reasons? Voutilainen: The reasons are purely economic, it might have to do with the setup of the refining capacity whether they would be able to handle the Saudi trade of crude oil, and most of our crude comes from Russia right now that is being handled as per our refining capacity. SG: Will you support Saudi Arabia’s war against terrorism in this region? Sipiläinen: It’s an issue we have been discussing not only from the terrorism point of view but all other conflicts too and I think we need everyone here constructively in order to have peaceful solutions to the Yemen or Syria or other conflicts going on unfortunately right now, so it is very important to resolve these issues when it comes to humanitarian situation in the neighborhood. SG: Is there any discussion about these issues between the two countries? Sipiläinen: Yes as you know we are the member of European Union so in this context we have regular dialogue with Saudi Arabia and also the Gulf countries in general, there will be a ministerial meeting between European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council upcoming soon so that is the one of the context where Finland is active as well. SG: Could you please let us know about the cultural ties between the two countries? Sipiläinen: Historically, we have great ties with the Arabian culture, our experts, historians and travelers explored Arabian Peninsula, it is really important to focus on today and at present it needs to introduce an innovative way to explore our cultural heritage. Voutilainen: There is an ongoing cooperation in archeological sector where we had a Finnish team of experts last year here and we are expecting Saudi team of experts this year at Finland, definitely we want to increase the cultural exchange. SG: In regards of ties, Finland offers a program for Saudi journalists, could you please tell us about that program? Voutilainen: The Ministry for Foreign Affairs has organized this is Finland Foreign Correspondents Program since 1990. The program is a media-training program targeted for young international journalists. Last year, we had selected a Saudi journalist as well and this year we are having two Saudi journalists and several more from the region this is something we are doing on regular basis for the young journalists globally to educate them to get to see themselves on what kind of country we are. It provides an excellent opportunity to learn more about Finland, Finnish society and the Finnish way of life. It includes briefings on various subjects, meetings with Finnish professionals and visits to business enterprises, cultural sites and institutions. SG: Finland is one of the successful countries in the world, what lesson other countries should adhere from its success? Sipiläinen: One of the key lesson is the hard work by everyone, we are such a small nation that everyone has to contribute, it’s also relating to equality so that everyone in the society has responsibility and has rights e.g. we are one of the countries with the largest shares of workforce that is one of the secrets behind of our success and the second one is the equal access of education to everyone. It started from the fact that in our society our teachers are highly respected peoples and they are highly qualified and having university degrees, I think the third thing is our nature, its bit harsh, so we are able to manage whatever the circumstances are. SG: What are your goals as the undersecretary of Finnish Foreign Ministry? Sipiläinen: We are trying to be a contributor in a positive way, We want to be an open and an active country so we are not only reacting to the facts but we are trying to make our own concrete contributions not only in our close neighborhoods but in the European and global regions, it sounds bit tall order but we have a very good team at work.