Finland Times

Iikka Korhonen, director of the Bank of Finland's Institute for Economies in Transition, predicted that the increasing tensions between Russia, a close neighbor of Finland, with Ukraine, might cause devaluation of the Russian rouble and thus indirectly impose adverse effects on the Finnish economy.

According to YLE, the rouble devalued and weakened and the share prices on the Moscow Stock Exchange plunged on Monday. Russia's central bank, therefore, raised its key lending rate by 1.5 percent to tackle the economic instability and inflation pressure.

  "This will hit us hard. The impact of the exchange rate (of the rouble) will be bad," Korhonen pointed out, adding that the weakening of the rouble will be reflected not only in Finland's exports, but also in tourism, since "Russian tourists will get fewer euros for their roubles."

In addition, according to Korhonen, the Russia-Ukraine tensions may also be reflected in interest rates outside Russia. 

"For example, interest rates in Germany went down today, Monday, as investors sought safer investment targets and Germany is considered as one. Less strong economies further east suffered more," explained Korhonen.

However, Korhonen did not believe that imports from Russia to Finland will be affected.

Russia is one of Finland's most important trade partners. The share of exports to Russia accounted for 9.9 percent of Finland's total exports in 2012. 

According to Finnish Customs, Finland's exports to Russia totaled 5.4 billion euros (7.4 billian U.S. dollars) in 2013, which decreased by 6 percent from 2012; while imports from Russia was 10.5 billion euros last year, declined by 1 percent from one year earlier.