At the turn of the year the economy was growing at a brisk pace and employment was increasing swiftly. By most measures, our economy had filled the void caused by the pandemic. The progress with vaccinations and the lifting of restrictions had set the scene for the economy to continue its recovery over the near term, with importantly, a very promising investment outlook.
On February 24th, when Russia invaded Ukraine, the previous forecasts became close to obsolete overnight. The war in Ukraine has brought extreme misery to Ukrainians. Thousands of people are getting brutally killed. This is something my generation was hoping to escape from. From our conference’s standpoint, the war has also caused yet another source of extreme uncertainty to the Finnish economy.