Financial Statements Bulletin 2025, 12 February 2026:
The following outlook information is based on materials published by the Confederation of Finnish Industries EK and Statistics Finland.
The global economic environment has remained relatively stable despite continued geopolitical uncertainty and increased tensions. The world economy is forecasted to grow by 3.3 percent in 2026, driven particularly by emerging economies. Among the major economic regions, growth is weakest in Europe; however, the euro area is still expected to grow by 1.3 percent this year. Risks related to economic development are associated especially with the unstable trade policy environment and the rapid changes in transatlantic relations.
Economic development in Finland has been subdued, and no significant changes have taken place in the economic outlook for Finnish companies in recent months. The situation across all industries remains weaker than average, while companies’ expectations regarding the future continue to be moderately positive and confidence in the economy among companies has slightly strengthened. The confidence indicator for retail trade also turned positive towards the end of 2025 and continued to improve in January. However, growth in retail sales has remained slow, and demand is sluggish in many areas. Nevertheless, sales expectations for the coming months are positive. On the other hand, consumer confidence, which has remained at a low level for a prolonged period, weakened further towards the end of 2025. Consumers’ estimates concerning the current state of their personal finances were very weak, and expectations both for the future of their personal finances and the development of the Finnish economy remained muted. In January, consumers considered the timing for purchasing durable goods to be unfavorable and fear of unemployment increased. Consumers’ estimates concerning inflation and expectations for its future development declined but remained at a fairly high level.
(Confederation of Finnish Industries EK: Business Tendency Survey, January 2026; Confidence Indicators, January 2026. Statistics Finland: Consumer Confidence, January 2026.)
The working-day-adjusted turnover of Finnish retail trade grew by 2.0 percent in December compared to the previous year, and the volume of sales increased by 0.7 percent. The cumulative working-day-adjusted turnover of retail trade in 2025 increased by 1.5 percent while the volume of sales decreased by 0.3 percent.
(Statistics Finland: Turnover of Trade, December 2025.)