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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.
He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.
In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.
Global Real Estate Project
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Finland: 'Refuge' for foreign investorsHalf of this year's real-estate business in Finland was done so far by international investors, local Helsinki Times reported. Foreign investors, especially from other West European countries, but also from Russia and North America, are increasingly enthusiastic about investing in Finnish properties, the report says. The preliminary data is supplied by the local Institute for Real Estate Economics (IREE). Investors, including the foreign investors, mostly bought up office space, shopping and other centers. According to the IREE, the volume of major transactions for the first half of 2008 reached 2.7 billion euros, of which foreign investors accounted for around 52 percent. Foreign interest in Finnish property has grown steadily since 2001 and is so far showing no signs of decrease. Overseas transactions already outweighed domestic ones in 2007. Several factors explain this trend: strong local economy, financial stability, increased capital supply from Russia, and real estate market slump in North America and Western Europe. Let's take a brief look at any of these points. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, once the largest export market of Finland, and the short-term economic problems in the early 1990s, this country has done remarkably well in economic development, reaching now the level of the most developed EU nations. It has recently outperformed the EU and the Eurozone nations' average economic growth. The current situation also looks bright compared to the gloomy predictions for most of the other OECD countries. Despite some economic slowdown, Finland is still among the best economic performers among the richest European nations. This trend is expected to last for a while. The financial stability for the investors has one name, the Euro, adopted by the country with the first wave of EU nations at the end of the 1990s. Let's recapitulate the benefits of the Euro for a small country like Finland. Adopting the Euro leads to lowering the interest rates and raising the economic growth rates, all the other factors being equal. Joining the Eurozone also leads to a better protection of the foreign investors, because the local government loses one of its main tools of manipulating markets, the sovereign power to print money. Third, adopting the Euro indirectly helps receiving EU cohesion funds; their indirect result is raising the value of the real estate. Last, but not least, there is fresh supply of capitals from countries and regions where for one or another reason the investments aren't so profitable today. Many OECD countries experience market slum due to economic depression and past market overexposes. Other countries, like the neighboring Russia, is plentiful with easy petrodollars that simply cannot be digested at home, therefore Moscow is in constant need of finding foreign markets for investment. All these factors have made Finland a good place for foreign investors, a temporary refuge in turbulent times.
Finland country profile --------------------
See also the directory of companies providing real estate services in, and general real estate information of Finland.
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