Finland's GDP to shrink by 8% this year: ETLA

Finland's gross domestic product (GDP) will shrink by 8 percent this year before rebounding by 4 percent in 2021, reported news agency Xinhua quoting the latest economic forecast published by the Research Institute of the Finnish Economy (ETLA) on Monday.

The ETLA put the projected decline down to the COVID-19 pandemic and the restriction measures to contain it.

Accommodation and catering will be the hardest-hit sector in Finland with a fall of nearly 30 percent, said the ETLA.

According to Markku Lehmus, Research Director at ETLA, the economic figures are gloomy, but without support measures taken by the government, the Finnish economy would even have been on the path to the recession of the 1930s. The research institute warned that it will take several years to achieve the 2019 production level.