Finland, once a major transport hub linking China and Europe, has lost much of its allure since severing transit links with Russia over the Ukraine war, the country’s consul general said – an issue compounded by a lack of visa-free access to China for Finns that much of the continent’s population now enjoys.

Before the war, Finland had a unique position among European countries as its flights could zip over Russia to China in 9 hours on certain routes, Consul General Timo Kantola told the Post. This made it a natural choice for tourism and business travel, as flights from China to other parts of northern Europe would often take longer or require transfers.

Flag carrier Finnair’s direct flights to China have fallen in number since the Russia-Ukraine conflict intensified in 2022 and Finland joined the European Union’s united front against Moscow, Kantola said. The airline had to divert away from Russian airspace to comply with sanctions, charting new flight paths over Turkey that add about three hours to each leg of China trips, he said.

“It’s clear that closing Russian airspace has been a big change for Finnair, and the airline has had to adapt,” he said.

The central Chinese city of Zhengzhou and Helsinki established four weekly direct flights in 2020, but an older Helsinki-Shanghai route has lost 9 per cent of its scheduled flights since 2019. Routes from Helsinki to six other Chinese cities have stopped, according to data from the Cirium consultancy.

“The advantage of Helsinki was its geographic position and speedy routings through Russian airspace that attracted large volumes of travellers from northern Europe,” said John Grant, a senior analyst with British aviation data firm OAG. Finnair, he said, has “seen a huge fall in demand” due to the resultant extensions of flight times and airfare increases.

At the same time, Finland has not been added to the growing list of countries whose nationals qualify for 15-day visa-free stays in China. That cohort now includes 11 European countries since the first batch of members was announced nine months ago, and Chinese statistics show arrivals from those places have surged this year.

The number of Chinese tourists to Finland, meanwhile, toppled from a late-2019 peak of more than 40,000 per month to last year’s monthly apex of around 12,000, according to the Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies.

Finland’s stoppage of train service to or from Russia has “in practice cut off the railway connection from China to Finland”, Kantola added. He said that in the years before the Ukraine war, railway cargo transport “was growing fast”.

Trains from Finland had previously crossed the 1,340km (832-mile) Finland-Russia land border to St. Petersburg, where passengers could travel onwards to China.

“Finland opposes Russia’s actions in Ukraine, consistent with the EU’s common position, hence its avoidance of Russian airspace and decisions to prevent tourism from Russia,” Kantola said.

Overall trade between China and Finland fell to US$2.6 billion in the first five months of this year from US$3.3 billion for the same period in 2023, according to Chinese customs data. China is Finland’s fifth-biggest export market.

In another move affecting China, Finland and Estonia shelved plans this year for an 80km railway tunnel from the Estonian capital Tallinn to Helsinki, Kantola said.

China had expressed interest in the project as a possible addition to its 11-year-old Belt and Road Initiative – a long-term effort to smoothen Eurasian trade links – but Finnish officials fretted about the costs. The tunnel would link Finland to parts of Eastern Europe where China has already improved railway systems.

“I don’t think this project is moving, for various reasons,” Kantola said. “In Finland there were hesitations about the idea from the beginning, related to expected high construction costs and low expected returns on investment.”

But China is still making a splash in Finland with sales of low-priced electric vehicles (EVs), Kantola said.

As far as overseas investment, Kantola said, Chinese firms have expressed interest in two Finland-based plants to produce lithium EV batteries.

China-based CNGR Advanced Metals is backing one project, which would operate on the coast of the Gulf of Finland. Though that proposal has sparked domestic concerns about water pollution, he said, those worries are not directed at China, adding officials and citizens from Finland are “open” to Chinese participation in the two plants.