Mining Finland : Spotlight

Finland offers rich, underexplored mineral potential and an advanced R&D, education, and innovation ecosystem that makes the Nordic country one of the world’s most attractive mining jurisdictions and investment targets.

FINNISH MINING SPOTLIGHT

Finland is located on the Fennoscandian Shield, which yields important industrial minerals and metals such as iron, nickel, copper, and platinum group metals, not to mention gold.

Given its strong similarities to the Canadian Shield and cratons of Southern Africa and Western Australia, the Fennoscandian Shield hosts world-class deposits of critical and strategic raw materials.

However, the area is considered underexplored compared to its international counterparts. The Central Lapland Greenstone Belt in Northern Finland, for example, is unexplored and believed to have significant potential for gold deposits.

Alongside its mineral potential, Finland hosts leading education and R&D facilities, which are strongly supported by the government to develop green and sustainable mining technologies.

Finland is an excellent hub for mining technology and has systematically developed its mining cluster, which today includes more than 10 mining-related universities and research organisations and 200+ mining technology and service providers.

Consequently, the country is considered one of the world’s most attractive mining jurisdictions, not only due to its geology and availability of geological data but also its well-developed and innovative mining ecosystem.

Q&A WITH ALEKSI SALO, CEO, MINING FINLAND

Recently appointed as CEO of Mining Finland in November 2025, Aleksi Salo outlines how he will continue the association’s excellent work in promoting the export of domestic mining expertise and building networks.

Firstly, could you introduce us to Mining Finland and your purpose?

Aleksi Salo, CEO (AS): Mining Finland is an association for Finnish mining and exploration-related technology, service, education, and research providers.

We define ourselves as a cluster, which means we work together. The main aim is to increase business – specifically export business – for Finnish technologies and services.

On top of that, we facilitate networking with companies here in Finland but also internationally. We promote Invest in Finland activities in the minerals sector, specifically for junior explorers and miners, and responsible, sustainable mining in general.

What is your current take on the mining industry in Finland?

AS: Ongoing mining projects – mines that will be opened in the next five to 10 years – are progressing rather smoothly.

This is a result of effective mineral strategies, regulation, and geological data policies that were implemented in the early 2000s and 2010s.

Unfortunately, the recently introduced mineral tax in Finland has cast a shadow on some of the larger operating mines, but we hope to see some light at the end of the tunnel.

You recently became CEO in November 2025. How have you found the role so far and why does it excite you?

AS: In this role, I believe I can have a positive impact on the growth of business and the Finnish mining sector as a whole.

It’s an exciting opportunity to have an actual impact in the sector, specifically promoting sustainable and responsible mining technologies, water management technologies, mineral processing, and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in international mining, having a positive impact on their growth of exports.

I bring expertise to the role gained from my geological and mining background, as well as my international project background at the Geological Survey of Finland.

How will you continue the association’s excellent work in promoting the export of domestic mining expertise and building networks?

AS: It’s good to stand on the shoulders of the three previous CEOs that worked here, and I’d like to express my most sincere gratitude to them.

During the last two or three years, the network has grown quite a bit to over 100 members – 130, to be exact.

When I started, one of the main priorities was to set certain goals and try to find key geographical market areas for our activities. With the size of our cluster, managing the expectations of members and global counterparts is also a key priority.

How does Mining Finland help Finnish companies expand into developing markets?

AS: Our key activities include attending conferences and fairs. Specifically, this is a very appealing opportunity for small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) who might not be able to cover the costs of their own booth, for example, and are maybe not so familiar with the market.

Our Mining Finland brand helps potential clients and stakeholders to recognise these companies are from Finland and connect with renowned Finnish processing and mining brands.

In addition, I personally create contacts and networks with the embassies of countries here in Finland. With the help of the Team Finland network and Business Finland, we work together to organise delegations and create webinars from ourselves to the target country and vice versa, explaining their business potential to our entrepreneurs and companies.

There are a lot of ways you can approach this, and it changes market by market.

Can you also tell us about the association’s focus on the expansion of critical minerals production linked to technology production?

AS: We have members that are research and education institutions, and a lot of the SMEs are start-ups, which means there is still room for testing, piloting, and proving the concept of their business.

We help companies and research organisations to find each other, but also willing business partners globally wanting to help pilot the solutions our companies have.

There is quite a sufficient amount of research funding available both domestically and within the EU, but purely business-orientated research is also welcomed in collaboration with our members.

How do you see the mining industry in Finland developing by the end of the decade?

AS: There are some mining projects in the pipeline which I hope will be in production by then; gold and platinum mines would be the most realistic to open by 2030.

Some expansion projects are in the pipeline as well, which I hope to see positive decisions on. The challenge is the regulatory environment, which might hinder or at least slow them down; court appeal processes in particular take time.

I would also like to see the mining industry be able to communicate its significance to the economy and subsequent value chains more clearly. It would give the general public more clarity about the benefits of the investments pouring in and expansion projects being realised.

Lastly, what are Mining Finland’s key priorities in order to continue promoting the export of technology, services, and education from the Finnish mining cluster to international markets?

AS: We are executing our strategy, which focuses on export promotion and creating permanent connections and collaborative models with our international network.

Of course, we want to grow, but there is a limit since Finland is a small country. We want more of our ecosystem actors to be part of this and more companies thinking of expanding into developing markets globally to join us and start doing expert promotion together with others in our network.

I would also like to see our activities on the Invest in Finland side of things start to realise themselves in a way that enables more funding for our junior explorers and miners in the coming four years’ time.