During the seven decades after the establishment of the republic in 1917, Finland made remarkable economic progress. At the time of the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, the Grand Duchy of Finland had the most backward economy in Nordic Europe. Situated at the outer edges of the spheres of influence of the major European industrial powers--Britain, Germany, and Sweden-- newly independent Finland appeared destined to remain a poor, peripheral area. By the late 1980s, however, the country had become one of the world's advanced industrial societies, the citizens of which enjoyed a high standard of living and the industries of which dominated world markets for significant hightechnology products. Finland was an industrial society, but it was self-sufficient in staple foods and produced a wide range of goods and services for domestic and export markets. Although the economy still depended on exports, the Finns had developed markets in both Eastern and Western Europe, avoiding excessive dependence on any single market.

Data as of December 1988