Finland: gross domestic product (GDP) 2021

The gross domestic product (GDP) of Finland was 251.4 billion euros in 2021, a increase of over 13 billion euros compared with the previous year. Finland's GDP showed an upward trend from the early 2000’s until 2009, when the economy was strongly hit by the global financial crisis. Thereafter, the Finnish economy stagnated, and the GDP slowly resumed its growth. However, after a three-year recession between 2012 and 2014, the GDP growth rates remained relatively weak.

Slow recovery after the financial crisis

As a small open economy, Finland was severely affected by the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. While all euro-countries fell into recession in the early stages of the crisis, the recovery of the Finnish economy has been tardy, remaining below the EU average. Finland’s GDP drop in 2009 was the worst since the ‘great depression’ of the early 1990’s, from which the Finnish economy recovered relatively fast because of the strong Nokia-led ICT industry. By 2009, the backbones of Finnish economy, forest and ICT industry, had started to encounter difficulties in foreign trade. This declining value of foreign trade coupled with weaker international business conditions resulted in economic stagnation.

Challenging outlook

According to economic forecasts, the Finnish economy is expected to experience a slow growth rate of the GDP in the upcoming years. In recent years, the economic growth has been stronger, although Finland is still catching up to other similar EU countries in productivity, household income, and employment rate. Traditionally, the country’s strengths have been high-level education and skilled workforce, openness to investments, as well as stable institutions. However, the population is ageing and the public debt has risen almost 30 percent between 2008 and 2019. The future outlook is further challenged by the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.