Interim Report 1-3/2025, 14 May 2025:
The following outlook information is based on materials published by the Confederation of Finnish Industries EK and Statistics Finland.
The outlook for the world economy has weakened since the start of the year, and uncertainty has increased considerably. The world economy is projected to grow by 2.8 percent in 2025, and growth in the euro area is expected to be only 0.8 percent, even though interest rates have decreased further. Continued instability is expected in the world economy.
The uncertainty in the world economy is also reflected in the outlook for Finnish companies. Although the economic outlook for Finnish companies shows signs of a slight recovery, it remains weaker than average and expectations about the future are cautious. Confidence in the economy among companies has weakened in general, but the confidence indicator for retail trade strengthened and was above the long-term average in April. Retail sales have turned to growth, and sales expectations for the coming months are moderately positive. Consumer confidence continues to be clearly below the long-term average. Consumer estimates concerning the current state of their personal finances improved, but were at a very low level. Consumers’ expectations for the future of their personal finances improved slightly. At the same time, their expectations for the development of the Finnish economy weakened. Estimates concerning inflation and expectations for its future development remained at a high level.
(Confederation of Finnish Industries EK: Business Tendency Survey, April 2025; Confidence Indicators, April 2025. Statistics Finland: Consumer Confidence, April 2025.)
The working-day-adjusted turnover of Finnish retail trade increased by 0.9 percent in March compared to the previous year, but the volume of sales decreased by 1.3 percent. The cumulative working-day-adjusted turnover of retail trade in the January–March period increased by 0.9 percent while the volume of sales decreased by 1.1 percent.
(Statistics Finland: Turnover of Trade, retail trade flash estimate, March 2025.)