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Finland back in recession despite rise in exports
FINLAND has succumbed to a double-dip recession after it suffered a further two quarters of economic contraction in the six months to March, official statistics confirmed yesterday.
The Finnish economy had contracted between October 2008 and July 2009 before growing in the third quarter of last year. However, the Scandinavian economy shrank by 0.2 per cent in the final three months of the year. Yesterday’s data, which revealed a 0.4 per cent contraction in the first quarter of 2010, confirmed a dreaded double-dip.
This is in spite of a recovery in the Eurozone member’s trade balance, which rose seven per cent from a year earlier in April. This resulted in the country’s first trade surplus in six months.