Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Financial Services, Investments, Markets and Companies, Woodwork

Selirand said that the expansion of Stora Enso's financial center in Tallinn is a good example of how to accelerate Estonia's economic development. "Our aim is to bring to Estonia the kind of investments that would create smart jobs, have a high value added and that would move our economy forward as strongly as possible. Stora Enso's plan to establish a strong competence center in Tallinn, which is aimed toward the automatization of processes, the implementation of new digital technologies and data analysis will definitely do that," Selirand said in a press release.

Enterprise Estonia is to support the development of Stora Enso's Tallinn service center into the main financial services center of the group with 200,000 euros. This entails the transfer of work from various service centers located in Europe and India, an increase in the local workforce by approximately 60 people and the establishment of jobs creating high added value.

"It is pleasing that we can offer the support necessary for companies and it is also positive that the high level of the Estonian IT field is enticing large players here," Selirand said, adding that there is constant and active work ongoing in Enterprise Estonia in order to entice other such development centers to Estonia and as important is the chancing of existing simpler service centers into more complex development centers. "It is good if an accounting service is offered from Estonia to an entire group, but it is even better if the digitalization and automatization of accounting processes are being dealt with," Selirand said.

Enterprise Estonia's support service and development center support is aimed toward companies that operate in at least two countries and are part of a group with a revenue of at least 100 million euros in the past few years. As a result of the project, at least 20 new full-time jobs must be created, the average salary of which must by equal to at least one and a half times the Estonian average county-based salary according to the location of the center to be established. The aim is to bring support and development centers with greater value added to Estonia. Enterprise Estonia has previously supported the development of ABB's regional business service center in Tallinn and the expansion of Arvato Financial Solutions' innovation and development center.

Stora Enso is provider of renewable solutions in the field of packaging, biomaterials, wood structures and paper. The group's customers include packaging manufacturers, trademark owners, paper and cardboard manufacturers, publishers, retailers, printers, processors and construction companies. Stora Enso employs approximately 26,000 people in more than 30 countries and the company's sales revenue in 2017 totaled 10 billion euros, while operating profit was 1 billion euros. Stora Enso has been listed on the Nasdaq Helsinki and Nasdaq Stockholm stock exchanges.