Defence Minister Antti Häkkänen (NCP) said there were “dubious purposes” behind the attempted property acquisitions.
According to Defence Minister Antti Häkkänen (NCP), a network of Chinese companies were among 14 property sales that the ministry blocked on Thursday.
The minister said a Chinese corporate network had attempted to purchase ten properties in locations critical to national security.
“Due to their location, these properties can have an impact on Finland’s national defence, security of supply, and the protection of national security and critical infrastructure,” Häkkänen explained.
According to the minister, there were “dubious purposes” behind the attempted property acquisitions.
“The property targets are such that there is no logical business justification, and the financial aspects cannot be reasonably justified,” Häkkänen said.
According to the minister, the properties were located in key areas that could impact security of supply arrangements, critical infrastructure or national defence logistics.
The minister said that the same corporate network had previously attempted to acquire similar security-critical properties in Finland, but in those cases, it was a question of individual property purchase attempts.
“Now we’re dealing with a broader phenomenon, and we had to intervene quite firmly today,” Häkkänen said on Thursday.
On Thursday, the ministry rejected the purchase of 14 properties. They are located in areas including Asikkala, Hyrynsalmi, Imatra, Laukaa, Pöytyä, Rautjärvi and Rovaniemi.
In addition to the prospective buyers from China, the rejected property transactions on Thursday concerned citizens or companies from Ukraine, Turkey and India.
Häkkänen noted that Russia has previously attempted to acquire security-critical properties from Finland — and now, in a first, operators from China tried doing the same thing.
Last year, Finland banned the sale of property to non-resident Russians.
