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Finland Structure of the Economy
Unavailable
Figure 14. Structure of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 1950
Unavailable
Figure 15. Structure of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 1986
By 1986 postwar economic growth had raised Finland's
GDP to
about US$70.5 billion, making the country one of the most
prosperous in the world. Economic expansion over the years
had
substantially altered the structure of the economy
(see
fig. 14;
table 13, Appendix A). By 1986 agriculture, forestry, and
fishing
had fallen to a little under 8 percent of GDP from nearly
26
percent in 1950. Industry, including mining,
manufacturing,
construction, and utilities, accounted for about 35
percent of
GDP, down from about 40 percent in 1950. Within industry,
metalworking had grown most rapidly, its output almost
equalling
that of wood processing by the late 1970s. In the late
1980s,
industrialists looked forward to a shift toward
electronics and
other high-technology products.
While agriculture and industry had declined in relative
terms
during the postwar years, the service sector had grown
from about
34 percent of GDP to almost 58 percent, leading some
observers to
characterize Finland as a postindustrial society. Several
factors
accounted for the expansion of the service sector.
Government,
very small under the Russian Empire, grew rapidly between
the
Great Depression and the early 1970s as the state took
responsibility for an increasingly greater share of
economic
life. In addition, transportation, communications,
engineering,
finance, and commerce became more important as the economy
further developed and diversified.
Control and ownership of Finland's economic life were
highly
concentrated, especially after the industrial and
financial
restructuring of the 1980s. Thus, by 1987 three firms
controlled
most shipbuilding, a small number of woodworking
enterprises
dominated the forest industries, and two main commercial
banks
exercised wide-reaching influence over industrial
development.
Large state-owned firms provided most of the energy, basic
metals, and chemicals. The country's farmers, workers, and
employers had formed centralized associations that
represented
the vast majority of economic actors. Likewise, a handful
of
enterprises handled most trade with the Soviet Union. Some
observers suggested that the trend toward
internationalization
might increase the influence of foreign firms and
executives in
Finnish enterprises, but this effect would make itself
felt
slowly. Thus, while Finland remained a land of family
farms, a
narrow elite ran the economy, facilitating decision
making, but
perhaps contributing to the average worker's sense of
exclusion,
which may have contributed to the country's endemic labor
unrest.
Data as of December 1988
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