Finland's Ambassador to the People's Republic of China (PRC) Jarno Syrjälä said China and Finland have been carrying out a broad range of activities on multiple levels under the ambit of China Finland Year of Winter Sports 2019 – the theme year set up by the two countries' leaders in 2017. He was speaking at a press conference organized ahead of 2019 World Winter Sports (Beijing) Expo on Thursday.

The ambassador listed four levels of cooperation carried out this year. The first level, he said, pertains to communication between the two countries' officials, whose talks form an umbrella framework for the work being carried out in the theme year. He said that Finland had already brought and was bringing Finnish ministers to China to meet and discuss issues with their Chinese counterparts.

Talking about the second level of cooperation in this thematic year, Syrjälä spoke of the companies who want to cooperate this year or in future. He hoped to employ corporate collaborations for building venues, providing top winter sports equipment, and other such facilities, thereby enabling the Chinese people to enjoy winter sports.

Moreover, Syrjälä termed people-to-people relations as another important level of China-Finland cooperation in the theme year. As an example, he said Finland and China have arranged partnerships between cities and provinces, which can enable more cooperation at local levels, rather than remaining confined to Beijing or a few winter sports cities and regions in China. Therefore, more places in China will be influenced in this year, he explained.

Furthermore, the ambassador talked about how the winter sports cooperation between the two countries and the setting up of a theme year had been strongly inspired by the upcoming 2022 Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. He also said that Finland hoped to coach Chinese athletes in both China and Finland.

Syrjälä made the remarks at a press conference organized ahead of 2019 World Winter Sports (Beijing) Expo, which will take place from October 17-20 at the China National Convention Center in Beijing. The expo is one of two events that marks the end of the China Finland Year of Winter Sports, the other event being the Closing Ceremony and Business Seminar in Rovaniemi, Finland. 

2019 was agreed to be the China Finland Year of Winter Sports during Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit to Finland in April 2017. In January 2019, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto and Chinese President Xi Jinping met again in Beijing where they officially announced the commencement of the theme year. Finland, which is traditionally strong in winter sports, became the first country to form a winter-sport theme year with China.

The theme year and the sports collaboration are part of a plan to build a future-oriented new-type cooperative partnership between China and Finland. The two countries released a joint working plan 2019-2023 for building the partnership. The plan outlines the framework for collaborations in the sports field among others.

For the sports segment, collaboration items include the 2019 winter sports theme year, communication and exchanges between authorities, and a partnership between the Beijing Sport University and the University of Jyvaskyla to build a China Finland Winter Sports College at BSU.

Under the joint effort to build a partnership, Finland has specifically set up a Winter Sports Cluster at Business Finland, to help assess commercial opportunities in winter sports programs and match Chinese and Finnish companies for collaboration. 

At the end of May this year, Finnish Paralympic Committee signed a Memorandum of Understanding with China Disabled Peoples' Federation, to increase Paralympic cooperation in the lead-up to Beijing 2022 Winter Paralympics and beyond. It is one of many partnerships reached between the two countries this year.

Syrjälä said Finland was determined to put its back into this expo, which is a milestone in the 2019 winter sports year. He said that they would bring in roughly 40 Finnish companies, sports institutions and associations, and the Finnish minister of science of culture, who is in charge of sports, will attend the expo as well. He added that they would organize a Finland forum on October 18 and have a national pavilion. "It will be an exciting event," he said.