In July, Finland's consumer confidence reached a new low, Statistics Finland reported.
It said that expectations about consumers' personal economies were the “gloomiest since records began”, ie 1995, when the agency started taking these readings as Finland was emerging from a severe recession.
In July, consumers had little intention of buying durable goods, Statistics Finland found. Car and property sales have also fallen, it added.
Consumer confidence has been negative since December 2021 and has been falling ever since. As many as 75 percent of consumers in July thought Finland's economic situation was worse than a year ago, and only seven percent felt it was better.
“Consumers' belief in their own economy both at present and for the future were gloomier in July than in June, and much gloomier than in July last year. Expectations for Finland's economy in 12 months' time also weakened clearly from a year ago”, the agency said in a statement.
At the same time, confidence within industry also declined, the Confederation of Finnish Industries reported.
The employer association's Business Confidence Indicator found month-on-month decreases in confidence in the manufacturing and construction sectors in July, but noted slight rises in confidence within the service and retail sectors.
Consumers’ expectations concerning inflation rose to their highest level: 84 percent of consumers thought prices had risen a lot over the year, and 69 percent expected prices to rise at least as much during the months ahead. Inflation accelerated by 0.8 percent points in June to 7.8 percent, according to Statistics Finland.
Consumer prices showed a particular surge in energy products and food: fish was up 46 percent and coffee, eggs, and flour rose by more than 30 percent since the beginning of the year.
“Since last December, the prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages have risen by 10 percent, light fuel oils by 76 percent, diesel and petrol by 42 percent and electricity by 22 percent,” Kristiina Nieminen, a senior statistician at Statistics Finland, noted.
Tellingly, according to a poll commissioned by newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, the rising prices of electricity and fuel ranked as one of the Finns' greatest worries along with alleged threats posed by Russia, a topic frequently invoked by Finnish politicians and media.
Rising consumer prices and growing insecurity have been seen elsewhere in Europe and the western world as sanctions devised to “punish” Russia have backfired dramatically. Eurostat’s harmonized indices of consumer prices put inflation in the eurozone at 8.6 percent in June. Inflation in the US reached 9.1 percent, its highest level in more than four decades.