Finnish Producers Research Articles

Valmet agrees environmental acquisitions

Valmet has entered into agreements to acquire EWK Umwelttechnik GmbH, a German manufacturer and supplier of air emission control systems and after-installation services, and ECP Group, a Finnish producer and maintainer of air emission control systems.

Каурісмякі & Шекспір: діалог з класиком

In the direction of post-modernist aesthetics a film version of shakesperian “Hamlet” is analyzed, performed by a Finnish producer Aki Kaurismaki, which manifests itself not only in montaging of the plot structure, the use of play which reveals as a structural base of characters’ actions and can be found on all levels of the film-text (everybody only plays a certain role but not a personality restoring the technique of the del arte comedy). A typical method is used “play in the play” and “screen in the screen”. A contrasting or even paradoxical building of separate fragments is achieved by an active use of stylization method. The film was created in 1987 but inheriting cinema tradition of the previous period (by the middle of XX century), the producer uses actively black and white format, a division of episodes with subtitles, darkening of shot, also implements a theatrical decoration of space, minimalism in details, close-up, a small number of cues, plot pauses. In such a way the producer uses a peculiar play with a spectator– identification of well-known techniques, cinema methods. However this stylization does not hinder the producer to picture the reality of the epoch in a true way.The dialogue of a Finnish classic Aki Kaurismaki with a classical text of a playwright Shakespeare becomes a bright example of original post-modernist genre-creation of the film-text due to the tangling of a surrealist spectacle with “a boring reality”, tragedy with a sarcastic pathos and also a radical re-comprehension of motivating intentions of the main character that influenced a root deformation of the shakespearean plot

‘A Shop Window Where You Can Choose the Goods You Like’

This article examines the Finnish industrial and trade fairs held in the Soviet Union in the context of Finnish–Soviet trade and scientific–technical cooperation in the 1950s and 1960s. While primarily focused on fairs, it also discusses different activities that accompanied them, such as lectures, visits, and negotiations between Finnish traders and Soviet officials and specialists. This study illustrates how such first-hand contact played an important role in Finnish–Soviet communications. First, they helped Finnish producers showcase their goods and technologies directly to Soviet buyers in various ministries and organizations. Second, these contacts included diverse activities such as face-to-face contacts, lectures, and seminars, being a means of technology transfer from Finland to the USSR . Finally, although they were commercial interactions without explicit ideological purposes – like many international exhibitions of the last century – Finnish fairs demonstrated a technological gap between Finland and the USSR.

Intelligent control station for improved quality management in flat steel production

Abstract: Reaching the maximum yield of produced stainless flat products is an important aim to be successful in the competitive market. This paper describes a solution to optimise the allocation of orders to coils taking into account the actual product quality as well as the quality expected by the customer. In opposite to already available solutions also the appearance of over-quality products is taken into account. Especially for high quality stainless flat products the re-allocation of over-quality products to orders with higher demands can increase the added value distinctly. Another topic is the processing of Manufacturing Specifications (MS). A concept for the digitization of usually freely formulated MS is presented as well as a systematic monitoring, if the MS are really considered by the plant operators. The shown use cases were implemented at the German sites of Outokumpu Oyj, the Finnish producer of stainless flat products sited in Espoo.

A measure of cereal market integration between Finland and European major countries

From take-off in January 2007 to peaks in the first half of 2008, wheat prices worldwide including Finland were doubled at the highest compared to the previous years, which known as “food crisis”. Rising prices for key staples ran alarm bells. The producer price for cereal products in Finland has become much more volatile, and the price level has followed the average price in the EU more closely than earlier. This indicates that the prices have become more subject to the changes in other EU countries. Within EU, one of the key targets of the CAP is to facilitate the spatial integration of agricultural markets within the individual member states as well as within the community. In other words, on a spatially integrated market, price information should freely flow between member states. International trade and trade liberalization contribute to greater price transmission elasticities as domestic markets become better integrated into the world economy. Therefore, the integration of the Finnish cereal market in the EU has important implications for domestic agricultural policy. In EU, Germany is the most important trading partners of wheat and barley for Finland, and France is the most important consumer and producer of all cereal products in EU and the Exchange Market of cereal products MATIFF is also located in France. Thus Germany and France are the best price benchmark market for the Finnish producer to follow the prices. Our aim is to estimate the characteristics of the Finnish bread wheat and feed barley markets in relation to those of Germany and France from producer's point of view. Especially we investigate the impact of “Food Crises” on the estimates of price transmission of Finnish producer’s prices in comparison to the European bench-mark countries, which are Germany and France. Methodologically, we apply the threshold vector error correction model (TVECM) developed by Balke and Fomby (1997) Goodwin and Piggott (2001), Hansen and Seo (2002), to identify regimes, one of which cover the food crises period. A TVECM allows us to more accurately discern the existence of a long-term equilibrium relationship among the stochastic processes as well as test for price asymmetry. We focus attention on the estimation of the transmission elasticities in different regimes especially during the period of food crisis. We found that the LOP held very well in the Finnish producer’s cereal market with those in Germany and France. Noticeably, the speed of adjustment towards long-term equilibrium was found to be quite fast during “food crises” for both cases of feed barley and bread wheat. It implied that Finnish producer prices of cereal products were cointegrated to EU market faster and better during price escalation and the time of “food crises”. It seems that “food crises” brought also opportunity for Finland to open agricultural markets, which is very important after the European market liberalized policies for the agricultural markets.

(Un)originality, hypertextuality and identity in Tiga's ‘Sunglasses at Night’

AbstractIn 2001, Montreal disc jockey Tiga, with the help of Finnish producer Jori ‘Zyntherius’ Hulkkonen, recorded and released a techno cover version of ‘Sunglasses at Night’, a song popularised in 1983 by fellow Canadian Corey Hart. This paper examines how a so-called ‘unoriginal’ musical practice such as the cover version, when re-contextualised into a brand new musical genre (a process called ‘trans-stylisation’), can engender new meaning, especially when it comes to the generic identity purveyed by the song's enunciator. The analysis of this new ‘original’ utterance relies on the theory of hypertextuality and describes, on the musical, lyrical and visual levels, the transformative processes from the hypotext (Hart's version) to the hypertext (Tiga's), thereby shedding new light on the poetics of the cover version and on the representational modalities of the postmodern subject.

The Finnish country-of-origin effect: The quest to create a distinctive identity in a crowded and competitive international marketplace

This paper discusses the efforts made by Finnish producers to emphasise the country of origin of their products in order to convey an image of innovation, quality and prestige. Finland's efforts in this area are relatively recent, dating mainly from the early 1990s. Traditionally, a producer of resource-intensive commodities—especially wood and wood products—Finland found itself facing growing competition from producers in other countries, especially emerging nations that enjoyed substantial cost advantages over Finnish producers. In response, Finland drew upon its tradition of excellence in design as well as its long-standing policy of investing heavily in education and research. It began to produce more ‘value added’ products and complemented this change in strategy by a conscious effort to make ‘made in Finland’ synonymous with superior design, quality and innovation. To successfully differentiate their wares, Finnish producers not only made intrinsic improvements to their manufactured goods but also made their Finnish provenance an important and attractive extrinsic feature. Finnish companies have been especially successful at creating brands that have a strong Finnish flavour, conveying an image of Nordic life that is progressive, responsible and technologically advanced. In this context, branding is much more than placing a name or a logo on a product. What is important is not only how the customer views the physical product but also the broader notion of how the product was conceived and produced and the values and traditions that it is perceived to embody. This paper cites a number of examples of how Finnish producers and marketers use the country-of-origin effect to differentiate and market their products. The paper, however, is mainly conceptual rather than empirical. It examines a marketing effort—supported and encouraged by the state but carried out by individual firms—but does not seek to provide a systematic overview of the extent or impact of such efforts. These are issues for future research.

Use of results of microbiological analyses for risk-based control of Listeria monocytogenes in marinated broiler legs

Microbial risk assessment provides a means of estimating consumer risks associated with food products. The methods can also be applied at the plant level. In this study results of microbiological analyses were used to develop a robust single plant level risk assessment. Furthermore, the prevalence and numbers of Listeria monocytogenes in marinated broiler legs in Finland were estimated. These estimates were based on information on the prevalence, numbers and genotypes of L. monocytogenes in 186 marinated broiler legs from 41 retail stores. The products were from three main Finnish producers, which produce 90% of all marinated broiler legs sold in Finland. The prevalence and numbers of L. monocytogenes were estimated by Monte Carlo simulation using WinBUGS®, but the model is applicable to any software featuring standard probability distributions. The estimated mean annual number of L. monocytogenes-positive broiler legs sold in Finland was 7.2 × 10 6 with a 95% credible interval (CI) 6.7 × 10 6–7.7 × 10 6. That would be 34% ± 1% of the marinated broiler legs sold in Finland. The mean number of L. monocytogenes in marinated broiler legs estimated at the sell-by-date was 2 CFU/g, with a 95% CI of 0–14 CFU/g. Producer-specific L. monocytogenes strains were recovered from the products throughout the year, which emphasizes the importance of characterizing the isolates and identifying strains that may cause problems as part of risk assessment studies. As the levels of L. monocytogenes were low, the risk of acquiring listeriosis from these products proved to be insignificant. Consequently there was no need for a thorough national level risk assessment. However, an approach using worst-case and average point estimates was applied to produce an example of single producer level risk assessment based on limited data. This assessment also indicated that the risk from these products was low. The risk-based approach presented in this work can provide estimation of public health risk on which control measures at the plant level can be based.

Finnish Salmon Trout—Discriminated in the European Market

The evolution of salmon trout farming in Finland provides an inter- esting example of how different trade policies can affect on the conditions of a small section of a primary industry in the global market. During the protection- ist times in the 1980s, Finland became the world-leading producer of salmon trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) (Saarni et al. 2003). During the global expansion of salmon aquaculture production and trade liberation, the Finnish fish farming industry faced fierce international competition. After Finland joined the Euro- pean Union in 1995, the food industry was deregulated, and imported Norwegian salmon began to displace domestic salmon trout. In 1997, the import of salmon to the EU was restricted by the Salmon Agreement between the EU and Norway. At first, the minimum import price set for Norwegian salmon raised the import prices of salmon trout too, but it ultimately proved to be an even more serious problem for Finnish producers than that posed by free trade. After the world market price of salmonids dropped sharply in 2001, very inex- pensive Norwegian salmon trout flooded the Finnish market, because salmon trout trade was not regulated in the agreement. The circumvention of the agree- ment led to an anti-dumping duty by the EU Commission in 2004.

Finnish agriculture after the accession into the European union

The preconditions for agriculture are in general worse in Finland than in most EU countries. The growing period is shorter and the effective temperature sum is lower. Mainly due to the unfavourable natural conditions the yield level in Finland is low in comparison with the EU countries. Finnish farms are considerably smaller than farms in the most important EU countries. Regional income disparities are a great problem. The Finnish producer prices were a lot higher than in the EU. It was clear that Finnish agriculture would face great difficulties after accession into the EU. The agricultural chapter of the Accession Treaty can be divided into three groups: conditions related to production; agreements on the support system; and the arrangements concerning the transitional period. It was important for Finland to reach an adequate level of support. Finally Finland was allowed to pay nordic support which was a new form in the support system of the EU. This nordic support is paid on the basis of the hectares of agricultural land or heads of animals. The support for the transitional period may be paid for only five years. This support must be regional and degressive. If serious difficulties should appear the EU Commission may authorise Finland to grant national support to facilitate full integration. In 1995, the year of accession, the producer prices went down considerably. Agricultural income has fallen by 36% in 1998 compared to 1994. In spite of this no collapse in production has occurred. In general, agricultural production has kept its preaccession level. Rapid rationalisation and various supports have helped farmers to trust in agriculture.