Meriklusteriraportti (pdf 5,6 Mb) - Turku

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sector. Of this number, nearly 7,100 persons
are employed in the maritime industries,
about 2,500 in navigation and 1,400 in port
operations. In addition, the public sector
involved in the maritime cluster employs
approximately 1,000 persons. The maritime
cluster employs approximately 6 per cent of
the entire employed population in Varsinais-
Suomi and Satakunta. The indirect employment
impacts are conservatively estimated
to be no less than 1.5-fold and extend to
numerous fi elds of business located
throughout the region. When the number
of direct and indirect jobs supported by the
maritime cluster are combined, the total for
Varsinais-Suomi and Satakunta is more than
27,000 people, or approximately 8.5 per cent
of the employed population in the region.
Of the entire Finnish maritime cluster, the
combined share for Varsinais-Suomi and
Satakunta is roughly estimated at one third,
but the share fl uctuates greatly in the different
fi elds of business within the cluster. The
region holds the largest relative signifi cance
to the shipbuilding industry, as nearly 90 %
of the shipyard jobs in Finland are located
in this region. The south-western region of
Finland accounts for slightly less than three
fourths of the entire maritime industry in the
country. This region also handles about one
fourth of the country’s shipyard operations.
During 2005, nearly 24 per cent of all the
marine traffi c between Finland and foreign
countries was handled by the ports in southwestern
Finland. The combined turnover for
the public ports of the region represented
25 per cent of the entire turnover of all of
Finland’s public ports.
The maritime cluster and, in particular, the
shipbuilding and mechanical engineering
industries and navigation have far-reaching
historical traditions in south-western
Finland, and this is viewed as an important
strength for these companies. The advantages
offered by tradition are further boosted
by an ever-expanding, broad and comprehensive
network of subcontractors and
suppliers, high-standard and highly
multiprofessional maritime expertise
and the region’s proximity to the sea. The
region also offers diverse training opportunities
for maritime-related fi elds, and the
supply of labour is quite good. However, the
demand for professionally-skilled labour
exceeds the supply in many of the business
areas of the maritime cluster, as is the case
in the shipbuilding industry in particular.
The future prospects of the maritime cluster
are promising. Approximately 75 per cent of
those who responded to the business survey
consider the future prospects to be good or
very good. Only 4 per cent of the respondents
viewed the prospects as being poor. Competition
is fi erce in the fi elds of industry and business
within the maritime cluster. Approximately
75 per cent of the respondents feel
that competition has increased over recent
years and nearly the same percentage predict
that the competition will increase still further.
The region’s most important competitive
advantages, as compared to elsewhere in
Finland, are its location, the competence of
its workforce, technological expertise and
a functional network of subcontractors.
The order portfolio of the shipbuilding industry
is extremely lucrative on the global
scale. The Finnish shipyards are specialised
in cruise ship, passenger-car ferry and special-purpose
ship production. The shipyards
compete well in these segments, and the
demand for cruise ships is steadily growing.
The total value of orders from Finnish shipyards
was approximately 4.2 billion euro at
the end of March 2006, and their market
share of the world’s passenger ship and car
ferry orders was around 17 per cent.
A total of 70 per cent of Finland’s imports
and up to 90 per cent of the exports travel by
sea, making navigation and port operations
one of the most crucial parts of the maritime
cluster, and their import will continue into
the future as well. There is also a desire to
ensure the place of the Finnish fl ag at the
top of as many commercial ship masts as
possible. It is not possible to infl uence the
competitiveness of the Finnish fl ag on the
regional level; rather, the issue calls for po-