Finland Prime Minister Alexander Stubb alleges that Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone and iPad contributed to the downfall of the nation’s economy, which depended upon two of its major domestic titans: Nokia and the Finnish paper industry, a sector that supplies the majority of paper throughout Europe.
Speaking in an interview with CNBC on Monday, the prime minister argued that the collapse of its two leading industries caused the economic downturn and the credit downgrade from AAA to AA+ by Standard & Poor’s.
“A little bit paradoxically, I guess one could say that the iPhone killed Nokia and the iPad killed the Finnish paper industry,” Stubb told the business news network this week. “But we’ll make a comeback. We just have to keep at it.”
Nokia used to be at the forefront of the smartphone industry, but it failed to keep up with the constant innovation of Apple’s iPhone and smartphones running on Google’s Android. Microsoft acquired the struggling business last year.
The paper industry has failed to recuperate as most consumers are scaling back on their paper usage and turning to electronic devices, such as Amazon’s Kindle and Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPad, for a lot of their needs, like reading books, perusing newspapers and writing documents.
Prime Minister Stubb is optimistic about the country’s economic future. He conceded that it’ll need several success stories akin to Nokia to become another economic winner.
“Forest is coming back in terms of bio energy and other things. And actually a new Nokia is emerged in terms of (Nokia) Networks,” he said. “Usually what happens is that when you have dire times you get a lot of innovation and I think from the public sector our job is to create the platform for it.”
Stubb is currently heading a four-coalition government and campaigned on reforming three key areas of government: healthcare, pensions and municipal budgets. He noted that there have already been improvements from its modest reforms thus far.