Last week the broadcasting
company Yle announced that some major retail networks in the South-East of Finland
are getting ready to accept Russian roubles as payment by the end of 2012.
First Stockmann voiced
their plans to accept Russian currency. Then other companies followed suit.
South Karelia and Imatra Boards of Trade have welcomed
the idea. Yet in some provinces the initiative was received without much enthusiasm.
The news of Finnish retailers
getting ready for Russian money has come only a week after Serbia was officially
allowed to exchange roubles on their domestic market. After that event economists
started talking about rouble becoming an international currency.
Dmitry Piskulov, Head of
the Board at the National Foreign Exchange Association, gave some comments on rouble’s
future in Finland.
He reminded that this country is very Russia-oriented since the Soviet times. And
Russian rouble is the second most popular currency after euro. “Rouble circulation
is developing there, because our countries have a rather vast border. Many Russians,
especially those living in Saint Petersburg and adjacent
regions, go to Finland
for shopping, often just for a weekend. Many people own some property”, – said the
expert. According to him, generous Russian shoppers are a good competitive advantage
for Finland during the economic
crisis that ravages Europe. So, big retailers tried
to stimulate sales by introducing new payment options for cash-carrying tourists
from Russia.
According to Finland’s State
Department of Statistics, the average sum a tourist spends in one day is €60. Yet
Russian tourists turned out to be more generous than others – they spend about €111
every day, almost twice as much, as an average tourist does. The overall trip budget
is highest with Chinese tourists. They spend about €670 in Finland, whereas
an average visitor spends only €306. But they are not even in the top-10 countries
that form the main tourist flow to the Finland.
Russian tourists spent
the grand total of about €890 million in Finland in 2011.
