Economic Commission for Europe.

After several consecutive years of economic contraction, the Finnish economy succeeded in withdrawing from the recession in 2015. Nevertheless, the economic growth was only modest and remained at 0.2 percent. The main reason for the starting growth of GDP and economic performance in Finland was the moderate increase in private consumption. Also, the investment activity slightly increased towards the end of the year. However, while the general economic development in Finland is highly dependent on the activity of foreign trade, the export performance in 2015 remained disappointing. Especially, the economic sanctions imposed by Western countries to Russia, and the countersanctions imposed by Russian Federation against the Western goods, were hampering considerably the Finnish exports to Russia along with the weak growth in international trade. Also, while the Finnish exports consist mainly of investment goods and the demand in key export markets has been mainly consumption goods driven, this has prevented the start of exports.