Finland Times

Output of total industries adjusted for working days was 0.5 per cent higher year-on-year in December 2015, according to Statistics Finland’s data.

The original index in total industries grew by 3.7 per cent in December.

Industrial output contracted by 1.1 per cent in 2015 from the previous year. The  Industrial output decreased continuously for four years in a row, the data show.

Finland’s industrial output went down by 19 per cent from the level in 2008 prior to the financial crisis.

The Finnish industry had seven years of dark times behind it. Industrial output did not plummet this much even during the Second World War and the 1938 level was exceeded as early as 1946.

In December 2015, seasonally adjusted output grew by 0.2 per cent from November. In November, seasonally adjusted output grew by 0.3 per cent while in October it decreased by one per cent month-on-month.

A majority of the main industries grew in December year-on-year. The largest growth of 3.7 per cent was recorded in the metal industry as per the statistics.

In December, the electrical and electronics industry increased by two per cent. In the forest industry, output grew by 1.5 per cent. Production went down by most in the food industry, by 8.2 per cent, from one year back. In the chemical industry, output fell by 0.4 per cent in December.

In December, capacity utilisation rate in manufacturing (C) was 77.8 per cent, or 0.9 percentage points higher than one year earlier.

In the forest industry, capacity utilisation rate was 80.3 per cent in December, or 1.1 percentage points higher than in December 2014 and in the metal industry, it was 80.2 per cent in December, which was 1.6 percentage points higher than one year earlier.