The Finnish forest enterprises have strengthened their position on the global market through corporate acquisitions in the US. Other Finnish companies have also grown and established world-wide markets, e.g. Nokia, which is the market leader in telecommunications in the world. The economy in Finland has grown into a direction that relies more and more on the service industry. (Virtual Finland).
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GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT (GDP).
Finland is a highly industrialized, largely free-market economy. Finland started from much more modest beginnings than other Western European countries, but its economy has grown more rapidly than most other European countries. The recession at the beginning of the 1990s affected Finland's economy harder than OECD countries on average, as the GDP declined 10% between 1990-1993. However Finland recovered from the recession and has steadily increased its GDP since that. The projected GDP growth figures for 2004 are among the highest in Europe. The basic underlying factors in the Finnish economy are sound and the competitiveness of Finnish business has been rated among the best in the world in a number of studies. Since Finland joined the EU, the rate of investments to Finland has increased rapidly. The GDP has also increased, but it is not because of the EU, but the stabilization in world economics and the rise of big Finnish companies. (FinnFacts, CIA World Factbook, Virtual Finland, Tilastokeskus).
The key economic sector is manufacturing, even though the service sector accounts for 66" of the national economy. The manufacturing sector is the largest in the field of industry and accounts for 26,3 % of the GDP. The manufacturing industry's most important sectors are wood, metals, engineering, telecommunications and electronics industries. (CIA World Factbook, Tilastokeskus).
The metal engineering and electronics industry is today Finland's largest industrial sector and accounts for more than 50 % of Finland's total exports.