Potential areas of international cooperation between Russia and Finland: survey of forestry services suppliers

The article presents the results of research carried out to describe the present situation and identify the improvement directions for the international cooperation in the field of forestry and forest industries on the example of the Republic of Karelia, which has a long border with Finland. The key research priority was the development of small and medium-sized forest businesses. The research was conducted in the form of a survey on the territory of the Republic of Karelia. A total of 53 respondents were interviewed, 34 were contractors-suppliers of forestry services, and the remaining 19 were companies-forest leaseholders. The results of a survey of suppliers of forestry services are described in this article. According to results of the survey, about 15% of the surveyed suppliers of forestry services have experience of operation in Finland today. At the same time, 50% of respondents were interested in operating in Finland in the future. This activity seems attractive despite the fact that 73.5% respondents considered the demands for their services in Russia as high. Most of the respondents qualified the differences in the adopted norms, rules, technologies, documentation, language barrier, remoteness, visa regime and customs restrictions as the barriers hindering the international cooperation. The respondents showed a great interest in information on new equipment, technologies, and production methods provided through trainings and educational courses. As the most promising topics of professional trainings, respondents identified: efficient operation of timber trucks, construction and maintenance of forest roads, maintenance of technological equipment and product quality, logistic management of wood harvesting and forestry, intelligent management systems of forest machinery, forest monitoring, inventory and management, thinning technologies for operators of forest machines.