Talk:Economy of Finland

Major POV

This article appears extremely POV, in that it ignores the very significant role of the state (e.g., regulation and public expenditures) in building Finland's strong economy. It ignores the fact that Finland's highly-educated population and low-crime rate were and are supported by very high taxes and rates of expenditure (as compared.,e.g., with the U.S.) If you were to rely on this article alone, you would think that Finland's economy grew as a result of the government's simply getting out of the way - nonsense.

GDP Update

Updating some GDP growth figures (according to the IMF ) and inserting a table to show growth:

Year	GDP in billions of USD PPP	% GDP Growth
2002	139.882	2.2
2003	145.327	2.4
2004	152.955	3.6
2005	161.099	1.8
2006	168.348	3.2

Link for verification --JDnCoke 18:08, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Comments

The article says: "Unemployment continues to be a problem for Finland even if rapid growth of the production after the recession and active employment policies have reduced unemployment to 8,8 % of labor force in 2004. According to Bank of Finland's statistics, the estimated total rate of unemployment including hidden unemployment accounted to 18% in the fall of 2003."

Perhaps it could be noted that 8,8% - not 18% - is the official figure measured following the accepted EU standards.

"Timber and metalworking are Finland's main industries"

What about telecommunications and electronics?

Taking into account that agriculture is about 4% of the GDP it clearly receives a bit too much attention.

"Although free education through the university level also is available, only about one child in four receives a higher education in the highly competitive system." and on the other hand: ". About 60% select the academic line." Is there a discrepancy?

"The good infrastructure in Finland has enhanced Finland's position as a gateway to Russia."

The road to St. Petersburg hardly represents good infrasturcture.

Anyway, Finland is now the most ICT specialized (or knowledge based) economy in the world. That's certainly one of the most important things about Finland's economy.

http://info.worldbank.org/etools/docs/library/201645/Finland_ES.pdf

What is university education?

Although free education through the university level also is available, only about one child in four receives a higher education in the highly competitive system.

Isn't it so in the Anglo-Saxon countries that "career colleges", that is, the same as Finnish second-level vocational schools, are considered "universities"? The statement above is highly misleading. Currently, there are too many academically educated people, but too few vocationally educated, compared to market demand. --Vuo 15:26, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Better article in Finnish

There is a better article on the Finnish Wikipedia. I would suggest a complete translation from that article rather than editing this version. The English article suffers from several, difficult-to-correct problems with emphasis, style, and accuracy. My first impression is that it's very similar to the CIA World Factbook entry. Missing from the article are things like:

• Finland is one of the most knowledge-based economies in the world, it's not just manufacturing, but technology.
• The chemical industry is the third largest industry
• Taxation facts and government spending
• Unemployment

All of this should be in both Finnish and English articles. --Vuo 16:00, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

"Largely Free Market"?

Looking at the statistics from OECD, I am not sure how well that qualifies? http://stats.oecd.org/wbos/viewhtml.aspx?queryname=313&querytype=view&lang=en -- Acksyning 16:46, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

The looney faction could keep their hands off

AKA the market fundamentalists. And not only here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.27.67.160 (talk) 19:08, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Bot report : Found duplicate references !

In the last revision I edited, I found duplicate named references, i.e. references sharing the same name, but not having the same content. Please check them, as I am not able to fix them automatically :)

• "oecd2004" :
  • Finland Economy 2004, OECD
  • Economic Survey of Finland in 2004, [[OECD]]

DumZiBoT (talk) 16:51, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism - can't figure out how to fix it

The sidebar on the rights contains the sentence "Micah's a fag!!!!!!!!!!!". I couldn't figure out how to delete it. Hopefully somebody more skilled in the ways of Wikipedia will see this and remove it.

83.145.240.248 (talk) 10:17, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Finnish industry

The son of a friend of mine was doing a geography project on Finnish industry and commented this was not mentioned on this page so I have added his researches and references to this page on his behalf. I am no expert on the subject so maybe someone else will take up the baton and run Mjchesnel (talk) 10:51, 8 December 2008 (UTC)