Ms. Annikki Arponen
Consul General of Finland in Hong Kong

Ms. Annikki Arponen is currently the Consul General of Finland in Hong Kong and Macau.

Ms. Arponen has extensive experience in international diplomacy. Before she joined the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in 1983, she was Project Manager at the Finnish Fair Corporation from 1976 to 1978 and interpreter and educator for Asian refugees in Finnish Red Cross from1978 to 1982.Her first job in the diplomatic service was Attache, Second Secretary, at the Embassy of Finland in Beijing from 1983 to 1991. After a year serving as a Press Officer in the Ministry, Ms. Arponen became the Second Secretary in the Political Section of the Embassy of Finland in Beijing in 1992 until 1996 when she was transferred to become the Desk Officer in the Unit for Asia, Africa and Latin America. In 1998, she returned to the Embassy of Finland in Beijing and became the First Secretary. From 2001 to 2010, she was Counsellor, East Asia regional team manager and China team leader in the Department for Asia and the Americas. Ms. Arponen took up her present post in 2010. Ms. Arponen graduated from University of Helsinki in 1973 and had further her studies in Beijing Language Institute, Peking University and Chinese University of Hong Kong. She holds a Master of Arts Degree and is a sinologist and an authorized Chinese-Finnish translator. With her extraordinary knowledge in sinology and translation, she translated the "Dao De Jing", the Taoism classic, into Finnish and published "Chinese-Finnish Dictionary" in 1985 and 1986, respectively.