{"id":16053,"date":"2012-06-21T02:03:06","date_gmt":"2012-06-21T00:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=16053"},"modified":"2012-06-21T10:53:03","modified_gmt":"2012-06-21T08:53:03","slug":"nokia-not-getting-finnish-government-bailout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/16053\/nokia-not-getting-finnish-government-bailout\/","title":{"rendered":"Nokia not getting Finnish government bailout"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen said the Finnish government will not consider purchasing Nokia<\/a> shares, quashing hopes the government would help support the company’s plunging stock.<\/p>\n

“This is not our business. We are developing Finland into a country where companies can do well, but this is not the way of support along which the government will go,” Katainen said on a visit to Salo in southern Finland where Nokia plans to close a cellphone manufacturing plant.<\/p>\n

There has been debate in Finland over whether the government should invest in Nokia, a central plank of Finland’s economy, to bolster its finances and help prevent a foreign takeover that could see its operations moved abroad.<\/p>\n

The government already holds shares in various companies considered crucial for its national interests, including forest and chemical companies, and is a majority shareholder in struggling airline Finnair and energy company Fortum.<\/p>\n

Finland is one of the few remaining triple-A rated countries in the euro zone, but its exports have been declining with Nokia, as well as traditional industries like paper and pulp, struggling to compete with cheaper rivals.<\/p>\n

Finland’s current account slipped into the red last year, and the central bank expects a deficit to continue through at least 2014.<\/p>\n

At its peak, Nokia accounted for around 4 percent of Finnish GDP and supported a wide range of companies as suppliers. Today it contributes less than 1 percent, according to analysts.<\/p>\n

Nokia’s shares, which have fallen more than 50 percent since the start of the year, closed 1.5 percent lower on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The company has lost about three-quarters of its market value, or roughly 20 billion euros ($25.40 billion) in absolute terms, since turnaround Chief Executive Stephen Elop<\/a> took the helm in September 2010.<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nokia strategy shift means do or die \u2013 observers<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Moody\u2019s cuts Nokia rating to \u201cjunk\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Nokia job cuts may speed decline \u2013 analysis<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Nokia to cut 10,000 jobs, sell Vertu<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen said the Finnish government will not consider purchasing Nokia shares, quashing hopes the government would help support the company’s plunging stock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4663,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[25,3253,10333,187],"class_list":["post-16053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-active","tag-finland","tag-government","tag-nokia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16053"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16099,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16053\/revisions\/16099"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}