Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,
Chinese Association of Science and Technology in Finland (CASTF) is a non-profit international organization, registered in Finland in 2014. CASTF has around 200 members, and over 80% of the members have Ph.D. degree or are Ph.D. candidates from Finnish Universities, Finnish governments, Finnish Companies and Chinese-funded companies.
The vision of CASTF is to promote the cooperation and development in the fields of science and technology, education, culture, economy and trade between China and Finland. Meanwhile, CASTF aims to promote Chinese traditional culture and promote the mutual understanding between people from both nations, and promote the unity, cooperation and communication between Chinese and Finnish scholars and professionals.
CASTF has organized many important events and forums in the past five years. As a rotating chair association in Federation of Chinese Professional Associations in Europe (FCPAE) in 2018, CASTF held the 10th FCPAE Europe Forum on September 25th-28th, 2018 in Finland. This forum achieved science, technology and innovation collaborations between China and Europe especially in the fields of city cooperation, clean tech, bio-medicine and health industry, smart city and circular economy, which attracted about 300 attendees including companies and startups from Asia and Europe, high level professionals and talents, as well as many official delegations and different stakeholders.
Finland has been famous for winter sport and sport healthcare and China will host the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic game. In 2017, President of China, XI Jinping has visited Finland and agreed with President of Finland Sauli Väinämö Niinistö to set 2019 as “Winter Sport Year”. In January 2019, the President of Finland visited back to China and one main theme for this visit is to launch the 2019 “Winter Sport Year” and aiming to promote 300 million people to know and enjoy winter sport. The two countries will actively collaborate on winter sport training, winter sport equipment and winter sport stadium construction etc. Finland invests hundreds of millions of euros every year in health-related education, research and research infrastructures. The quality and equality of healthcare services in Finland are among the best in the world, according to The Global Burden of Disease study published by medical journal The Lancet in 2018. Top athletes, football, ice hockey and basketball players among other counties have received the professional surgeries and rehabilitation therapies in Finland. The collaboration of sport-related healthcare will be performed during “Winter Sport Year” between China and Finland.
Herein, CASTF also has the mission of contributing to the winter sport and sport healthcare between Finland and China. And CASTF will organize the “5th China-Finland Science & Technology Forum-Winter Sports and Healthcare” on October 14th, 2019 in Helsinki. We will collaborate with Finnish winter sport equipment and training companies and provide chances for hand-on practice with the laser guns for Winter Olympic Games. Finnish healthcare organizations will join the forum and bring more professional information on Finnish sport medicine and rehabilitation services. We welcome everybody who love or who want to know and promote winter sports and sport-related healthcare to join the forum and we believe that this will be an important event that will support the China-Finland Winter Sport Year!
Warmly welcome!
Prof. ZHANG Hongbo, Chairman of CASTF
September 7th, 2019