April-to-June sales rose by 12 per cent year-on-year to about 545 million euros.
"The recovery in demand that started at the end of the first quarter continued in the second quarter," Harri Kerminen, the managing director of Kemira, said in a statement.

Kemira raised its full-year outlook.

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The EK's construction confidence indicator scored -20 points, up from -23 points in June and -51 points in July last year

The services and retail confidence indicators fell slightly from June.

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"In July confidence in the economy was also clearly better than the long-term average and the strongest in three years," the statement added.
Statistics Finland interviewed 1,263 people for its consumer survey.

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The unadjusted jobless rate fell to 8.8 per cent from the year-ago figure of 9.1 per cent, the agency added.

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"We believe this listing will enhance the company's profile and will provide an opportunity for Ruukki to widen its shareholder base through increased access to international institutional investors," Alwyn Smit, the managing director of Ruukki, said in the statement.

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The Finnish Slot Machine Association (Ray) said in a statement Monday it would cut the equivalent of about 80 jobs, adding statutory cooperation procedure talks would start in early August.

"The growth in slot machines is mainly achieved through developing new technologies, such as internet distribution," the government gaming monopoly said.

The Committee of European Banking Supervisors said in a statement Friday that Finnish bancassurer OP-Pohjola had passed the second round of an EU-wide stresstest exercise.

"The results of the stresstest indicate that the capital adequacy of OP-Pohjola group is highly resilient to the adverse test scenario employed," the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority said in a separate statement.

Sweden's Nordea and Denmark's Danske Bank also passed the test, with both banks running branches in Finland.

Russia placed pork and beef processed by Finland's Atria under an export ban in February, the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) reported on Friday.

Juha Grön, head of Atria Finland, said the events leading to the ban had begun last year.
"Over the course of their own inspections back then the Russians found types of antibiotics that have never even been used in Finland," the public broadcaster quoted Grön as saying.

He added that on a normal day dozens of food lorries crossed at Vaalimaa into Russia.
The export ban affects 14 Finnish food processing facilities.

The Finnish Food Safety Authority (Evira) said it had no idea how long the export ban would last. ]]> mindfreakkkk@hotmail.com (Milad Dehghan) Business Fri, 23 Jul 2010 10:12:21 +0000 http://www.helsinkitimes.org/htimes/domestic-news/business/11928-kesko-doubles-second-quarter-pretax-profit-.html http://www.helsinkitimes.org/htimes/domestic-news/business/11928-kesko-doubles-second-quarter-pretax-profit-.html Finnish retailer Kesko on Friday posted an April-to-June pretax profit of about 79 million euros, up from some 38 million in the year-ago period.
Second-quarter sales rose to about 2.28 billion euros from some 2.14 billion.

"The outlook for trends in consumer demand has improved somewhat, especially as a result of higher consumer confidence and continuously low interest rate levels," Kesko said in a statemement.

"Nevertheless, the trend in economic development continues to involve significant uncertainties relating to the evolution of total production, tightening taxation and ramifications of possible disturbances on the financial market."

Keeping its full-year outlook unchanged, Kesko said it saw its net sales and underlying earnings rising from last year's figures.

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YIT's sales fell to about 855 million euros from some 863 million in the year-ago quarter.
"Demand for housing is expected to remain at a good level in 2010 in Finland as well as in Russia," YIT said in a statement.

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Earlier this week the Wall Street Journal quoted unnamed sources as saying Kallasvuo would be sacked by the end of the month for failing to put up a fight against high-end handset rivals like Apple's iPhone. ]]> mindfreakkkk@hotmail.com (Milad Dehghan) Business Thu, 22 Jul 2010 13:19:46 +0000 http://www.helsinkitimes.org/htimes/domestic-news/business/11898-nokias-q2-pretax-slims-to-eur-221-mln-.html http://www.helsinkitimes.org/htimes/domestic-news/business/11898-nokias-q2-pretax-slims-to-eur-221-mln-.html Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia on Thursday posted an April-to-June pretax profit of about 221 million euros, down from 380 million in the year-ago quarter, with Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, the managing director of Nokia, striking an upbeat tone.

"Despite facing continuing competitive challenges, we ended the second quarter with several reasons to be optimistic about our future," he said in a statement.

"For one, the global handset market has continued to grow at a healthy pace, led by some of the less mature markets where Nokia is strong." ]]> mindfreakkkk@hotmail.com (Milad Dehghan) Business Thu, 22 Jul 2010 10:58:35 +0000 http://www.helsinkitimes.org/htimes/domestic-news/business/11897-alma-media-posts-eur-11-mln-q2-pretax-.html http://www.helsinkitimes.org/htimes/domestic-news/business/11897-alma-media-posts-eur-11-mln-q2-pretax-.html Finland's Alma Media on Thursday reported a second-quarter pretax profit of some 11 million euros, down slightly from the year-ago period.

Sales remained almost unchanged year-on-year at about 79 million euros.

"No significant change for the better took place in the media advertising market in the second quarter even though the market picked up somewhat toward the summer," said in a statement Kai Telanne, Alma's managing director.

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Second-quarter sales rose by about 18 per cent to some 364 million euros.

"Our second-quarter development met our own expectations," Pekka Lundmark, the managing director of Konecranes, said in a statement.

Konecranes kept its full-year outlook unchanged.

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