Finland
The Finnish economy is likely to grow by less than 3 per cent this year. The outlook for the economy is overshadowed by the gathering pace of inflation, which is being fuelled especially by the rapid growth of crude oil and food prices. Higher interest rates are causing uncertainty on the housing market.
According to the Confederation of Finnish Construction Industries, the total volume of construction will grow by about 4 per cent this year. It is anticipated that a total of 28,000 new housing starts will be made in Finland this year, compared with about 30,800 in 2007. The selling times of housing units have clearly grown longer and the number of unsold completed units has risen.
Demand for commercial and logistics construction has continued at a good level, but office construction is expected to slow down in the second half. The market for industrial construction is good and refurbishment contracting continues to grow steadily.
The infrastructure construction market has remained reasonably good and foundation engineering works in particular have been in sufficient demand.
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In the other Nordic countries, with the exception of Denmark, economic growth in 2008 is expected to be slightly higher than the average growth rate for the euro zone.
In the Baltic states, there has been a significant downward revision of growth forecasts. The economic outlook for the region is being weakened by accelerating inflation in particular. New road construction and upgrade projects are still being launched with foreign funding.
The Russian economy continues to grow robustly and foreign investments are expected to maintain their growth. Demand for construction is still good in Russia.
Finnish industry has many on-going investment projects in China, India and Eastern Europe. The construction of 3G networks continues in the United States and Latin America, as does the deployment of second-generation GSM networks in the developing countries.
Source: Lemminkäinen Interim Report 1-6/2008