Finland Prime Minister Alexander Stubb says Apple's iPhone and iPad contributed to the demise of the Finnish industry, which relies largely on its "two champions," the technology industry heralded by former phone superpower Nokia Oyj and the Finnish paper industry, which supplies much of the paper demands of Europe.
In an interview with CNBC aired on Oct.13, Stubb says the downfall of two of its major industries led to an economic downturn that caused Standard & Poor to downgrade its rating of Finland from AAA to AA+, leaving Germany and Luxembourg the remaining European countries to enjoy a top rating from the ratings agency.
"A little bit paradoxically, I guess one could say that the iPhone killed Nokia and the iPad killed the Finnish paper industry," Stubb says [video]. "But we'll make a comeback. We just have to keep at it."
Finland has suffered a massive pair of blows to its economy. One is the downfall of Nokia, once a major player in the worldwide smartphone industry, and the paper industry, which is headed by pulp and paper manufacturers Stora Enso and UPM-Kymmeme, which both supply paper products to most of Europe.
Microsoft came along to purchase Nokia's ailing phone business after the Finnish company failed to keep up with competition against Apple's iPhones and other phones running on Google's Android.
The paper industry has also failed to bounce back as users are increasingly shifting to electronic devices, such as Apple's iPad and Amazon's Kindle, to access news and other information. In 2013, the Finnish Forest Research Institute released a report warning of a "poor situation" for the industry, saying that production and exports of paper could continue to decline for a year or so.
However, Stubb remains optimistic about the future of Finland's two biggest industries, with advances in bio-energy and the rebuilding of Nokia Networks seen as a lucrative way for the technology and paper forest industries to forge a new start, although he says recovery will not happen overnight. Stubb's long-term survival plan will take up to four years before Finland can go back to its previous shape.
"I hope if everything goes well that at a maximum it would take four years to get the AAA status back," Stubb tells local media in Helsinki. "At a minimum it will take two years."
In the past, Stubb has been known to call on the warring coalition and a quarrelsome parliament to set aside political differences to balance Finland's teetering budget and pay off its debts. In August, Stubb admitted that Finland was in a "lost decade" and needs to institute structural reforms to bring its ailing economy back to health.
