Spring is gradually turning into summer. It’s also time for us to focus on what we call a “new normal”. It’s business as usual, only with more digital elements, more online meetings, remote work, new innovations and development, and hopefully a growing social life. That is what we Finns are good at: surviving, development, innovations, and social life – with some inclination for keeping distance.

The Finnish Business Council is now focusing more on online events, even after the pandemic, while not forgetting the social aspects here locally. Although growing well, the FBCB is becoming scattered as more and more of our members are either in Finland, or other cities in China. Online events allow us to gather together, and serve our members better.

Last Friday we had our Annual General Meeting. It’s also a new start, as a new board was elected. This is the first time this has happened via an online meeting. Eight candidates signed up, and as the bylaws permit eight board members the general meeting approved all candidates (the old board, plus one new member). The new board members for the term 2020-2021 are: Du Larry (Tikkurila), Liu Yuan (Wetend), Nurmenniemi Ulla (Bluecloud), Patja Pekka (Detection technology), Selkala Seppo (Sinoreach), Tang Tommy (Honka),Tuominen Juha (Roboride), Xiong Jenny (PwC). Take a look at the short introduction and the role in board of each member at the lower part of this newsletter.

The Finnish Business Councils are part of Team Finland, and in very close cooperation with the Embassy and Business Finland, which Ambassador Jarno Syrjala and Business Finland Head of China Eija Tynkkynen also emphasized in their opening remarks of AGM. FBCB is the voice of Finnish companies here. Traditionally, we have participated Team Finland days with the involved companies a couple times a year, and participated important provincial trips led by the Ambassador. During this pandemic all planned face-to-face meetings and provincial trips were cancelled or postponed. To alleviate the situation, we initiated Team Finland Webinars in order to reach companies both in Finland and China. We plan to keep both the old and the new events, so there will be more cooperation between companies and Team Finland in the future.

This month´s guest writer comes from Stey. Read more about the urban living concept which brings young talents together from all over the world.

On the behalf of the FBCB, I wish you all Happy May Day!

Ulla Nurmenniemi

Executive Director

Finnish Business Council Beijing is part of Team Finland in China, and an outstanding platform for all Finnish businesses in China. For those companies which need more visibility, we have just launched a Premium Membership. It's an upgrade from normal membership, as you can see from the table below.

For those companies in Finland, who are planning to expand their businesses to China, or are in the early stage and don't have an office in China yet, we have a distant membership. It's called Proxy Membership. A very cost-effective way to make your company known to a large audience, and get essential contacts for your future.

With the exception of recent months, a constant flow of new-comers arrive to China from other countries – whether they are expats hired by Western or Chinese companies, exchange students, entrepreneurs, diplomats or talents returning to mainland lured by the attractive job-opportunities in China. In addition, more and more people regularly move around or commute in-between tier 1 cities of greater China spending their time between more than one city.

We all know it is tricky to arrive into a new city and build social network from scratch. At the same time social life besides work is the key for people to be happy and stay put in their expat jobs. All newcomers also share one common dilemma: how to find the right place to live.

In my first 2.5 years in Beijing I had a hard time making local friends and felt somewhat outsider – always about to look for opportunities elsewhere. At the same time, I desired to stay in “Jing”, learn more and really understand China and its ways. Luckily a friend introduced me to a recently built new concept of communal living called “Stey” belonging to White Peak Group from Sweden, the largest European real estate developer in China - well-established in China already for long.

I was told that Stey was intending to provide young people like myself affordable individual flats in central areas with large communal areas shared with neighbors, while at the same time providing cross-cultural community experience for young professionals to bind East and West closer together. I got excited.

I decided to give it a try – especially as I wished to meet more Chinese locals, improve my spoken Chinese, and have a better understanding of the cultural codes. In spring 2019 I moved from my lovely but lonely Sanlitun DRC apartment to this newly built co-living concept in their first building in Wanfujing. After moving into my one-bedroom apartment (with Scandinavian style of course!), I quickly realized I was sharing the same building with likeminded individuals: a mix of Chinese young professionals and expats who recently moved to Beijing with variety of career backgrounds from art to finance and game development, advertisement etc… I suddenly gained a powerful social platform: I could easily start a conversation with anyone in the building. In a few weeks I had made a group of friends living in the same building sharing experiences in Chinese, English, Finnish and many other languages from night-jogs around the Forbidden City to cooking classes and the oh-so-important bar outings. I no longer wanted to move away from Beijing. I truly became a part of buzzing Beijing as I always wanted to be – now with local friends. In fact, I decided to stay in Beijing and a year later joined the Stey company itself to further develop this concept.

As a Finn it is important to me that the underlying aim of Stey is to bring a postive impact to the society: firstly, by providing Chinese young people (and some interesting expats too) more affordable housing; secondly by giving people this platform to create and exchange life-long bonds. Thirdly by offering interesting career opportunities for young local people in an international setting. The key is to use in-house developed technology platform to help young people to have the ability to take demanding management roles, allow cost-efficient building management, lower energy consumption, and a novel way of combining sharing economy with residential living – leading to a lower living cost as a result. The concept has been a success so far. Stey is opening the 3rd residential unit this summer next to 798 along with the Wanfujing and Sanlitun properties.

As a prime example of how sharing “the roof” makes trustworthy friendships, creating new business opportunities - two “Steyers” – a young Chinese tenant and an Ecuadorian tenant - decided two weeks ago to help Ecuador’s people and economy as the country is battling with the novel COVID-19 virus. They managed to negotiate an export deal of up to 350 containers of bananas weekly (!) from Ecuador to China just casually operating out of their “command center” in the corner of the community living room in Stey – the key to their success was to trust each other and bring together their respective networks inside and outside China. True super-ladies! 

 At this stage, Stey is still a start-up with only a few hundred flats in Beijing but it has ambitious plans for the next 5 years. I personally hope to see several hundreds of Steys opening in China’s prime cities. And create a lot of goodwill and cultural exchange on the way.