[Helsinki 7th Reuters]-The Finnish Ministry of Finance revised down its economic growth forecast on the 7th. The downward revision is the second time this year. The reason is the sharp decline in exports.
The forecast for economic growth this year has been revised from 1.6% to 1.5% and next year from 1.2% to 1.0%.
In June, the ministry revised its forecast for economic growth this year from 1.7% to 1.6%, and next year's forecast for economic growth from 1.4% to 1.2%.
The ministry said, “There is bad news for overseas economies, but the short-term outlook for the Finnish economy remains good.”
The Finnish government intends to increase spending and raise taxes to protect the domestic economy from the global economic slowdown.
The ministry said that it will “expand spending at a pace that exceeds the revenue increase due to the tax increase. Overall, the budget will worsen by about 400 million euros at the level of 2023”.
“In the future, the economy will expand further, led by domestic demand.” Regarding exports, he indicated that “trade frictions in major countries have an impact on world trade and indirect effects on Finnish exports”.
According to the Statistics Bureau, the country's economic growth rate in 2018 was 1.7% and in 2017 it was 3.0%.