Although the Finnish state is going into debt at an alarming rate, it has generously distributed business subsidies in recent years.
Approximately seven billion euros in tax euros were paid out in subsidies from 2020 through 2025. Including pandemic subsidies paid in 2020-22, money was forked out to 121,000 companies during this period.
Over the past two years, nearly one billion euros' worth of subsidies have been distributed annually while the government has simultaneously made billions in cuts in other areas, including education, health and social services.
Forest products giant UPM-Kymmene has received the most subsidies over the past six years – totalling almost 140 million euros. Shipping companies have also received generous support, mainly in labour-cost subsidies for merchant vessels, according to data from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment.
UPM has received support to offset its emissions trading costs and electrification of its industrial processes, as well as for research and product development.
The firm’s top position as a recipient of emissions and electrification subsidies is linked to its status as one of Finland’s biggest electricity consumers. UPM's energy subsidiary is the country’s second-largest electricity producer.
UPM profitable every year
On the other hand, UPM has reported profits and distributed dividends in each of the past six years. Last year, it earned an operating profit of nearly three-quarters of a billion euros.
In other words, the company would have been fine without subsidies. Why, then, has it applied for handouts from taxpayer money?
"We’re constantly using every means to improve the competitiveness of our factories. Overall competitiveness is the sum of many factors, and individual subsidies can also play a role in this," UPM’s vice president for public affairs, Stefan Sundman, told Yle.
The Åland-based shipping firm Viking Line received the second-biggest slice of the corporate subsidies pie last year, 28.4 million euros, down from 28.8 million the previous year. In 2023, it was the top recipient with 22.4 million after placing second in 2022 and 2020.