This year’s economic forecast still looks accurate, next year’s perhaps not

According to the view underlying the Labour Institute for Economic Research’s (PT) autumn 2017 economic forecast, economic growth in Finland is brisk in the current year, and the Finnish national economy also has good conditions for more sustained but more moderate growth. The forecast identified the greatest risks as relating to foreign developments, such as the unpredictability of United States policy, geopolitical tensions, and the possible strengthening of the euro slowing exports.

According to PT’s forecast, Finland’s gross domestic product would grow by 3.6 percent in the current year. A calculation utilising Statistics Finland’s quarterly national accounts figures — which are still fairly uncertain — in which economic growth is assumed to continue at the same pace in the final quarter as in earlier quarters, yields a result indicating that economic growth in the current year would be only approximately 3.1 percent. The recent improvement in the employment situation suggests, however, that economic growth in the current year may turn out to be greater than the above estimate: in October the employment rate grew by 1.6 percentage points compared with a year earlier, whereas between January and September the corresponding figure was on average only 0.6 percentage points. (AI translation)

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