Twin city Yaroslavl offers business opportunities for Jyväskylä-based companies

The companies participating in the visit were Prosolve Oy, RamonEdge Oy, Export Maker Oy, Arctic Machine Oy, Jyväskylä Educational Consortium Gradia, Suomalainen Uimakoulu Oy as well as Export Maker Oy.

The visitors’ programme included meetings with local companies, talks between the Mayor of Jyväskylä Timo Koivisto and the Mayor of Yaroslavl Vladimir Volkov, a meeting with the management of the Yaroslavl Lokomotiv ice-hockey club as well as a construction seminar. Additionally, the guests paid a visit to Finland’s General Consulate in St. Petersburg.

“The City’s role on this type of corporate visits is to support companies by setting up meetings and facilitating networking,” says Mayor Timo Koivisto.

Outcomes – participants assess the results

Pasi Pulkkinen, CEO of RamonEdge Oy, says “We’re currently operating blade servicing centres in four cities in Russia. As a result of this visit, we’ll set up three more, one of them in Yaroslavl.”

Program Manager Petri Hagman of the Jyväskylä Educational Consortium Gradia reports that “Following the meetings we’ll submit tenders to several parties related to supplementary training in real estate and construction.”

Prosolve Oy’s CEO Janne Salmela has this to say: “One of the business opportunities I see is the refurbishment of local indoor swimming pools. It would make it possible to put together a consortium of Finnish companies that could offer the project on a turnkey basis. Additionally, we could offer solar energy systems for the region’s public buildings, swimming pools an schools.”

Littleswan’s objective was to explore possibilities for introducing baby swimming in Yaroslavl. Eevaliisa Anttila and Hannu Perälä report that ”We had the opportunity to get to know swimming pool operators engaged in cleaning and maintaining swimming pools who are keen to work with us. We’ll continue negotiations in order to set a suitable starting date. We’re already looking forward to swimmers from Yaroslavl this winter.”

Juho Suonperä, 1st Chair of the City Board, reports that “We got an excellent overview of the business opportunities in the Yaroslavl region, the city organisation and the education system.”

Suvi Metsola from Export Maker Oy, who assisted in organising the corporate meetings, says “We were quick to get to the point at the business talks and agree on further action. Companies from both Yaroslavl and Jyväskylä were well prepared for the meetings and appreciated the background support provided by the city.”