With a largely industrialized, free-market economy, Finland boasts a per capita output similar to that of the France, UK, Germany and Italy. The primary source is manufacturing such as metals, wood, telecommunications, engineering, and electronics industries. Finland's ratio of foreign trade to GDP has risen from a quarter to nearly 45% over the past 15 years. Finland excels in high-tech exports such as mobile phones. Finland depends on imports of many raw materials, energy, and some components for manufactured goods. Due to climate, agriculture is limited and cannot produce goods for export. Forestry, on the other hand, is an important export, providing a secondary occupation for much of the rural population. Although one of the best performing economies within the European Union, in recent years and even though Finland’s banks and financial markets have avoided much of global financial crisis, the world slowdown has diminished export growth as well as domestic demand which will cause a halt to economic growth in 2009 and 2010. The slowdown of construction, other investments, and exports will also cause unemployment to rise. It is expected that during 2009, unemployment will climb to over 8%. Not unlike the US, long-term challenges include the need to address a rapidly aging population and decreasing productivity that threaten competitiveness, fiscal sustainability and economic growth.

Gross Domestic Product
Finland has (2008 est.) purchasing power parity of $202.2 billion. The official exchange rate is $281.2 billion. The real growth rate is 1.5% and the per capita (PPP) is $38,400. The GDP is divided into: Agriculture at 2.8%, Industry at 33.2% and Services at 64%. Gross fixed investments equal 20.5% of GDP.

Labor Force
The total labor force for Finland is 2.53 million workers which breaks down into occupations thusly:
Public services 32.4%
Industry 18.3%
Finance, insurance, and business services 14.5%
Commerce 16%, Construction 7.3%
Transportation and communications 7%
Agriculture and forestry 4.5%
The estimated unemployment rate for 2008 is approximately 6.4%.

Indicating a high standard of living, in 2007, Finland showed household incomes of only 3.6% of the workers in the lowest 10% and 24.7% of workers in the top 10%.

Finance
During fiscal 2008 (calendar year), Finland showed a surplus; bringing in $66.48 billion and spending only $65.3 billion and have public debt of 33% of GDP. The inflation rate for that same year was 4.1% while the prime lending rate was 5.04%

Stock of Money
The European Central Bank (ECB) controls monetary policy for the 16 members of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU); individual members of the EMU do not control the quantity of money and quasi money circulating within their own borders. (Finland has no quasi money.)

The stock of domestic credit was $240.7 billion as of 12/31/07.
The market value of publically traded shares was $369.2 billion as of 12/31/07.

Production
Primary industries in Finland are: metals and metal products, electronics, machinery and scientific instruments, shipbuilding, pulp and paper, foodstuffs, chemicals, textile and clothing. In 2008, the industrial production growth rate was 4%.

Agribusiness produces: barley, wheat, sugar beets, potatoes, dairy cattle and fish.

Overall, Finland produces 74.1 billion KiloWatt hours of electricity while consuming 86.9 billion kWh. They export 3.2 billion kWh and import 16 billion kWh. The electricity is produced primarily by fossil fuels (39%). Second to that is nuclear power (30.4%) followed by Hydroelectric power (18.7%) and other forms (11.8%).

Oil production is about 8,951 bbl/day while consumption is 217,500 bbl/day. After importing 331,200 bbl/day of crude, they export 124,300 bbl/day of refined products.

Finland currently does not have natural gas production so they must import 4.576 billion cubic meters per year.

Trade Balance
The estimated 2008 Account Balance was $10.29 billion, having exported $104.3 billion in goods and imported $93.28 billion.

Finland exports electrical and optical equipment, machinery, transport equipment, paper and pulp, chemicals, basic metals and timber to their trade partners: Germany 10.9%, Sweden 10.7%, Russia 10.3%, US 6.4%, UK 5.8%, Netherlands 5.6%.

She imports foodstuffs, petroleum and petroleum products, chemicals, transport equipment, iron and steel, machinery, textile yarn and fabrics, grains from: Germany 15.8%, Russia 14%, Sweden 13.7%, Netherlands 6.8%, China 5.5%, UK 4.9%.

International Finance
Finland has $9.3 billion in foreign exchange and gold. Their external debt is $271.2 billion. The direct foreign investment at home is 494.57 billion while the direct foreign investment abroad is $121.9 billion.

The monetary exchange rate of the Euro per US dollar was 0.6799 in 2008 steadily strengthening since 2004 when it was 0.8054.