Immigrants’ children eager to go into business

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In the current year, the number of clients with immigrant background at Vantaan Uusyrityskeskus, a service centre giving advisory services for new business enterprises, has been much higher than that in 2007.
      In fact, the children of those immigrants who have lived in Finland for many years are now starting to set up new enterprises.
      ”They have a good starting-point as they are skilled in languages and with a high level of education”, says Managing Director Risto Kuosmanen from Vantaan Uusyrityskeskus.
     
While there have been more immigrant clients over the first three months than during the corresponding period in 2007, there has also been a qualitative change.
      ”Today, immigrant clients are more skilled in languages and they have a clear business idea. Many enterprise ideas are also focusing on other fields than traditional restaurant businesses”, Kuosmanen notes.
     
For example, the Karts, a family from Kurdistan, apparently have entrepreneurship in their genes. Father Yusuf Kart, 40, came to Finland as an asylum-seeker about ten years ago, but established his first business of his own six years later.
      Kart’s first restaurant was set up in Itäkeskus with the help of a start-up grant provided by the local Employment and Economic Development Centre. Today the restaurant employs five persons.
      Somewhat later his friends helped Kart to establish Café Caisa in Helsinki’s Kaisaniemi.
      ”Financial aid is the most important form of support when one is setting up a business”, says Yusuf Kart, who has been the best supporter and guide of his daughters Helin Kart, 19, and Zilan Kart, 22.
      Helin will open her own business, Hotel Restaurant Tigris, in Inkoo on May 1st. Until then she will work at Café Caisa, now owned by her sister Zilan. At the same time, she is studying to become a dental laboratory assistant.
      ”I will continue my studies in order to become a dental technician and in five years I intend to establish a dental laboratory of my own”, Helin Kart plans.
     
Most immigrants set up their businesses without any grants from the labour administration, for example through various business services.
      The fact is that since the new millennium, immigrants have been more willing to become entrepreneurs than have those who belong to the original Finnish population.
      In 2006, the number of decisions on start-up grants was more than 8,000, while only five per cent of the receivers of such aid spoke other than Finnish, Swedish, or Sámi as their native language.
      In 2007, almost half of the 1,000 entrepreneur clients of NYP Business Services were immigrants.
     
”Of all established businesses one-third, or more than 100, belonged to entrepreneurs with an immigrant background”, reports Toivo Utso, the Chief Business Advisor at NYP.
      NYP is a part of The City of Helsinki’s Economic and Planning Centre.
      There are approximately 6,000 enterprises that are owned by immigrants in Finland. Around half of these are located in the Greater Helsinki area, most of them in the capital itself.
      Approximately 2.5 per cent of the Finnish population are immigrants.


Links:
  The Employment and Economic Development Centres (T&E Centres)
  NYP Business Services

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