The state's biggest corporate cash injections have been into heavy industry and shipping, but a horse racetrack also drew significant support last year, according to publicly available information on government subsidies.
Last year taxpayers in Finland subsidised ferry company Viking Line to the tune of 20 million euros, making it the country's top public funding recipient. Occupying second place was forest giant UPM-Kymmene, followed by steel maker Outokumpu in third.
Other major Finnish companies were also among those receiving corporate aid from the state, but one anomaly was perhaps the Vermo racetrack, a trotting arena, which the government spent six million euros shoring up.
These figures were drawn from a public information service providing data on Finland's top 1,000 subsidy recipients. Finland spends half a billion euros annually on corporate subsidies.
"The government is urgently seeking savings, so now would be the time to examine this expenditure," said Heli Koski, research director at Etla Economic Research, a private think-tank. She noted that some of this financial support was inefficient, or even harmful.
Koski further told Yle that she was not surprised by the firms topping the subsidy list.
"Even though subsidy programmes targeted at industrial firms have been cancelled, there's always a new one replacing them — and the same companies apply. Clearly, there's an in-group that has formed around these subsidy programmes," she said.
According to Koski, the most harmful subsidies are those that actually slow down innovation and are targeted at relatively inefficient companies.
Last year the Finance Ministry also proposed trimming public subsidies.
The government is meanwhile preparing to announce an additional three billion euros in austerity measures this month. This brings its total belt-tightening exercise to nine billion, accounting for roughly a tenth of the state budget.
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