Finland may see gradual economic growth this year as its export markets start to recover, according to the central bank.
The Bank of Finland raised its projection for the northernmost euro member, and now sees economic expansion of 0.2 percent, versus the 0.1 percent contraction forecast in December last year, it said on yesteday. GDP growth will accelerate to 1.2 percent next year and 1.3 percent in 2017, it said.
Though the forecasts represent an improvement, they still reveal a much weaker recovery in Finland than in the eurozone on average.
“Finland will not reach the euro area pace of growth even in the next few years,” the central bank said.
The pace of Finland’s output expansion “could turn out to be even lower if the global economy were to improve more slowly than expected,” it said.
Finland’s economy has contracted since 2012 after its consumer electronics industry disappeared and demand for newsprint declined, depleting its manufacturing base. At the same time, a deterioration in labor-cost competitiveness and Europe’s ongoing economic crisis sapped demand for its exports.
“The Finnish economy is facing headwinds, with no strong growth recovery in view,” Bank of FinlandGovernor Erkki Liikanen said in the report.
The new government says it is pursuing a swathe of measures to plug a 10 billion euro (US$11.3 billion) gap in long-term finances. It wants to improve productivity by negotiating a social contract with trade unions and employers that would moderate wage gains, as well as balance public finances through spending cuts. It is also pushing for an economic overhaul.
“The scale of the fiscal adjustments envisaged by the government is justified,” Liikanen said. “Population aging will already weigh more on the general government fiscal balance in the next decade.”
Three prominent Finnish business leaders on Tuesday vowed to take a 5 percent pay cut to support the government’s push for across-the-board wage reductions and urged other to do the same.
“I myself have decided to donate annually a significant amount of money over the next four years, with a focus on education and research,” Confederation of Finnish Industries head Matti Alahuhta said.
Additional reporting by AFP
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the