I just put up a post on the economic situation of Finland. Now I am putting another. Why the sudden interest? What is there about the Finnish economy which could be of interest to more people than the five million or so who actually live there?
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Author Archives: Edward Hugh
Logging-on Finland
I am trying to follow developments in the Finnish economy. This isn’t always easy since I am linguistically challenged, and the english language press doesn’t have a lot of info. One thing is clear: growth since the start of the century hasn’t been spectacular. Of course drawing any clear conclusions is difficult since the economy seems to be heavily dependent on one tech company and its lumber industry:
Finland’s gross domestic product (GDP) rose 1.7 percent month-on-month in July for an annual rise of 0.9 percent, due to increased activity in construction and services, Statistics Finland (SF) said on Tuesday.
SF also revised the June year-on-year GDP figure to a decline of 3.2 percent versus a previous 3.3-percent decline.
The country’s paper industry was still affected in July by production lost during plant start-ups after mills in the key export sector were shut for 7 weeks from mid-May.
Source: NTC research
You can find the Statistics Finland data here.
The French Differential
As I keep indicating the French economy – although not a spectacular success – continues to outperform the German one. This is interesting, since the French political system has been much more laggard than the German one in implementing reforms. That is why I place emphasis on the demographic differential.
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Poland To Hold Euro Referendum?
Poland is having elections Next Sunday. They are getting rather less press coverage than the German ones, but one issue does now seem to have hit the news:
Poland could be heading for a referendum on the adoption of the euro in late 2009…. Centre-right group Civic Platform (PO) and the eurosceptic Law and Justice party (PiS) both came out in favour of a referendum on the single currency in the Polish press on Monday (19 September), with Law and Justice proposing a date toward the end of the parliament’s next four year-long session.
The latest opinion polls tip Civic Platform to win the general elections by 32 percent with Law and Justice picking up 27 percent and the pair planning to form a powerful new coalition that will be less friendly toward the euro and the EU Constitution than the present left-wing government (SLD).
Sharp Decline In German Investor Confidence
NTC research is reporting that investor confidence declined sharply in Germany in September. The research – by think tank ZEW – was carried out between September 5 and Monday at 1500 GMT. So the reading is weighted to pre-election (but post Merkel slump) answers:
German investor confidence fell in September due in major part to uncertainty about the country’s future economic policies, a survey by the ZEW economic think tank showed on Tuesday.
ZEW’s expectations indicator, based on a poll of 309 analysts and institutional investors, fell to 38.6, from 50.0 in August.
”An essential reason for the declining indicator is that uncertainty about the future economic policy may affect the investment climate and puts the economic upswing at risk, ” ZEW said in a statement.
One Consequence Of The German Elections
In an early comment on Sunday evening I ventured the view that at least “One thing at least seems clear: negotiations with Turkey for full membership are now very likely to start on October 3”.
Well Lo and Behold, and just as theory predicted, the EU Obsever announce this morning:
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Grand Larceny?
Crickey, this really does seem to fall under the definition of what you could call a scandal. According to the Independent’s Patrick Cockburn one billion dollars was plundered from Iraq’s defence Ministry between June 2004 and February 2005 (during the government of interim prime minister Iyad Allawi):
“It is possibly one of the largest thefts in history,” Ali Allawi, Iraq’s Finance Minister, told The Independent. “Huge amounts of money have disappeared. In return we got nothing but scraps of metal.”
Think-Tank Policy-Wonking
What better way to spend a quiet Sunday afternoon whiling the hours away before the imminent German election results and Barça’s next away match than leafing through think-tank papers?
Well at least I have found myself a good thread to feed me them:
“Policypointers is an online facility created to enable those involved in government, academe and the media to gain rapid access to the research and conclusions of think tanks around the world.”
Among the interesting links I found there was this one to the European Policy Centre Website.
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More Bigtime Divergence
As people may have noted, last weekend Tobias and I were in Stockholm. One of the topics I wanted to post on but couldn’t was the latest Human Development report from the UN. There was plenty of press coverage: here, here, and here
There was even coverage in the blogs, but the tone seemed to be set by Slugger O’Toole who seemed mainly to take issue with Ireland’s rating in the HDI.
Personally I think the issues involved are much bigger than this.
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Neelie Kroes Does It Again
Well, our Neelie is back in the headlines (here, here, here, or here ).
Personally I don’t really see the issue, I think she can express her opinions if she wants to. What intrigued me rather more was the EUPolitix headline on the story.
Dutch EU chief backs ‘ultra-liberal’ Merkel
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