The city of Espoo in Greater Helsinki is the second hottest region for innovative foreign direct investments, states the Global Innovation Index 2013. Espoo is the only European region in the top five: Shanghai was ranked the best; Fairfield, Palo Alto and Seattle in the USA occupy places 3-5.
The scoring is based on foreign direct investment activities in 2010–12 as measured by number of jobs created by greenfield investment projects.
Some examples of knowledge-intensive FDI project that have recently landed in Espoo are AppCampus, a unique cooperation project between Nokia, Microsoft and Aalto university, and one of China’s biggest science parks Zhong Guan Cun landing in Otaniemi, Espoo.
The success in ranking does not come as a complete surprise: Greater Helsinki has profiled itself as a world-class hub for innovative and knowledge intensive businessess and has succeeded in attracting a good number of foreign direct investments during the past couple of years. Situated at the heart of the Baltic Sea Region, the region offers access to a dynamic market of 100 million people. International companies highly appreciate the region’s prime location, the ease of doing business, culture of fresh thinking and real quality of life.
