Finnish bottled water to be exported to China

Bottled ground water from the Finnish city of Lahti will be transported on the China-bound trains next year, as a ground-breaking ceremony took place on Friday for a bottling facility.

Ville Skinnari, the Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade, initiated the ground breaking ceremony. He told the gathering that both the processing of water and logistics will meet sustainability criteria.

The bottling company is H204U, which has been authorized to use a million liters of Lahti water per day, a Finnish language newspaper Etela-Suomen Sanomat (ESS) reported.

Some 100,000 cubic meters of fresh water gathers under the Salpausselka ridge every day. Thus the authorized amount is one percent of the daily output, ESS was told by representatives of the city of Lahti.

Aqua-Matters, a company owned by Singapore-based investor Allan Poh and his family, is involved in the investment, which is estimated at 20 million euros, according to a press release by the city of Lahti.

Poh told another Finnish language newspaper Helsingin Sanomat that the bottles from Finland are scheduled to hit the shelves in Beijing in August 2020.

He said the company plans to sell the Finnish water to elsewhere in Asia and in North America.

Oleg Titov, a director of Aqua-Matters, told ESS that the quality of the Lahti ground water and its availability were decisive for the project.