It further rose by 20 per cent in December 2010–April 2011, before moderating by about 2 per cent during June–July 2011. Notwithstanding some softening in the last few months, it is important to recognize that the current level of commodity prices is almost double of that two and half years ago (Table 2).
These were introduced at the same time as many other countries started to adopt cost moderation in response to the economic recession. Finland suffered a major loss of cost-competitiveness. An additional factor behind the deteriorating conditions for economic growth in Finland was the reduction in the size of the working-age population.