Half-year Financial Report 1-6/2025, 14 August 2025:
The following outlook information is based on materials published by the Confederation of Finnish Industries EK and Statistics Finland.
Uncertainties in the world economy continue as a result of trade policy disputes, among other things. Uncertainties are increased by, for example, the war in Ukraine and instability in the Middle East. The world economy is projected to grow by 2.8 percent in 2025, but growth in the euro area is expected to be only 0.8 percent.
The Finnish economy has grown slowly, but the economic outlook for Finnish companies has slightly weakened since the beginning of 2025 and expectations about the future are cautious. Confidence in the economy among companies has weakened in most industries. The confidence indicator for retail trade also weakened slightly but remained above the long-term average. Retail sales have again started to decrease, while sales expectations for the coming months are still moderately positive. Consumer confidence improved somewhat but continues to be clearly below the long-term average. Consumers’ estimates concerning the current state of their personal finances improved. Consumers’ expectations for the future of their personal finances weakened below the long-term average. At the same time, their expectations for the development of the Finnish economy improved. Estimates concerning inflation and expectations for its future development remained at a high level.
(Confederation of Finnish Industries EK: Business Tendency Survey, July 2025; Confidence Indicators, July 2025. Statistics Finland: Consumer Confidence, July 2025.)
The working-day-adjusted turnover of Finnish retail trade increased by 0.9 percent in June compared to the previous year, but the volume of sales decreased by 1.1 percent. The cumulative working-day-adjusted turnover of retail trade in the January–June period increased by 1.1 percent while the volume of sales decreased by 1.1 percent.
(Statistics Finland: Turnover of Trade June 2025.)