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Europe

Finland
Last reviewed: 21 May 2009

Country information

ECONOMY

Basic Economic Facts

GDP: €179 bn (2007) (source: Statistics Finland)
Annual growth: 4.4% (2007)
Inflation: 4.1% average in 2008)
Per capita income:
Unemployment: 6.6% (December 2008), 6.1% average in 2008.
Major Industries: Telecommunications; Electronics & Electrical Industry; Forest Industry; Machinery & Transport vehicles; Chemical Industry;shipbuilding; textiles and clothing.
Major trading partners: EU (Germany, Sweden, UK), Russia, USA

Germany was Finland's main export market in 2007. 57% of Finnish exports go to the EU. Russia is the largest source of Finnish imports. 14.1% of Finnish imports come from Russia. Russia is also a sizeable export market for Finnish goods and services. In 2005, Finland was the EU Member State with the largest share of exports oriented to the Russian market. In recent research, it has been shown that the total employment effect of economic activities related to Russia is 50,000 people or 2% of employed workers in Finland. The high-tech sectors are increasing their percentage of Finnish exports to Russia. In 2005, every fourth mobile phone exported from Finland was destined for Russia.

Finnish companies are increasingly making investments in Russia. According to the Bank of Finland's balance of payments figures, the stock of foreign direct investment in Russia by Finnish enterprises was €448 million. These investments tend to be situated in Northwest and Central Russia. A majority of investments have gone into the following sectors: forest industries; wholesale and retail; production of electricity and heating; and the food industry.

A high percentage of goods bound for Russia go through Finland. Many European companies prefer to ship their goods to Finnish ports and then allow Finnish transportation and logistics companies to ship the goods by rail or road to Russia. The value of transit exports going through Finland is about 5 times more than Finland's own exports to Russia. Approximately 32% of Russia's total imports arrive from Finland, either as direct imports or as transit.

Country information

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Travel Advice

Travel advice: Finland 

See Also

Useful Links

• BBC Timeline of Finland 
• UK Trade & Investment Country Profile: Finland
• Virtual Finland is a comprehensive website administered by the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs with links to government, NGOs and other Finland–related sites.
• The national broadcaster YLE has its own site in English including live Finnish radio and a recorded news summary in English.
• The leading daily newspaper is: Helsingin Sanomat - a Helsinki newspaper that has a wide readership in the rest of Finland.
• Finnish Statistics

Contacts

Copyright 2009 Foreign & Commonwealth Office