“With a no road infrastructure Greenland needs partners to do business, and it still looks to the West as an economy of choice. With 2000 years of history between land-ice-bridges, there are common linkages there that just don‟t exist with other places, including Denmark.” -
Atlantic Canadian Source -
“They (opportunities) are very significant over the long term. We have an existing joint-venture currently in operation, and our sense is things are just starting to get going. The opportunities are broad and pervasive.” Atlantic Canadian Source
However, while most businesses see Greenland as an opportunity, other than the larger companies (including international companies), most do not have a formal strategy or handle on how to proceed in Greenland. As one informant from Newfoundland and Labrador notes, “It is not currently on our radar screen as we are concentrating on growth opportunities in our region…(but) I believe there could be significant opportunities considering our engineering is in line with infrastructure development at remote sites.” The basis of this report, as we see it, is to help get just such a company the necessary information so they can develop a framework for moving forward, in order that they have a handle on the full scope of Greenland, its governance, its key regulatory barriers, and a sense of some of the possible opportunities resulting from the perceived barriers to do business in Greenland that could be pursued in the short term. For instance, data from companies with knowledge and experience in Greenland note that opportunities are contextual insofar as Greenland is in the Arctic, which comes with its own set of rules and limitations that many companies may not be familiar with. As one Newfoundland and Labrador based aviation firm notes, opportunities are there, but are “limited”, because “it is not an easy place to do business.” Another source in Nova Scotia, whose business has work in Greenland and the North, notes that few businesses or government leaders have a true appreciation for the cost, energy and complexity of conducting business in an Arctic environment. In this respect, there are lessons already learned from those companies who have been doing business in Greenland. Understandably, however, most companies were reluctant to depart these hard earned lessons to competitors, but one company helpfully noted that: “We did do business in Greenland before, and while we did an excellent job and were well-received in Greenland, the work we undertook was not well received in Denmark, who put up a stink about our presence there. This highlights the complexity of doing business under self-rule in Greenland – there are many competing interests and the Danes have had a 2000 year head start in the region.” -Atlantic Canadian Source This is an important insight provided for businesses considering Greenland; as we continue to repeat throughout this document, it is imperative that one do one‟s homework on Greenland before moving ahead to conduct business or seek opportunities in Greenland. Again, for example, speaking to the obstacles and opportunities in Greenland, one company source notes that in Greenland: “We are seen as a foreign company, and experience the full brunt of regulatory barriers and transport barriers, many of which come from the EU / Denmark. We constantly have to be sensitive to the local context and Air Greenland‟s control of the transport industry.”
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