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Proportion of growing rural enterprises

16.11.2017 Updated 27.12.2023

Approximately one third of all enterprises in Finland are located in rural areas. The number of enterprises fell slightly from 2013 to 2019 in rural areas but increased slightly in urban areas.

According to the definition of the OECD, a growth company is an enterprise which employs at least ten people at the beginning of the growth period and the number of employees increases by more than 20 per cent per year during the next three years.  In 2011 - 2014, there were 786 growth companies in line with the OECD definition in the whole of Finland, of which 146 were located in rural areas. In 2016 – 2019 the corresponding figures were 1,234 and 186.  Then, 15 per cent of all growth companies were located in rural areas. Most of the companies in rural areas are in secondary production and services.

If the classification of business size is made broader than the OECD definition and enterprises that employed at least three people at the beginning of the growth period are included, the proportion of growth companies in rural areas was 21 per cent in 2016 - 2019 (768 enterprises).  By using this definition, there were 3,722 growth companies in the whole of Finland.

 

 

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Description of the indicator

The indicator represents how growth of small and medium-sized enterprises in rural areas has developed in relation to SMEs in the whole of Finland and aims to analyse how the activities of the Rural Development Programme have affected this development.

Statistics Finland produces information about the number of rural enterprises and growth companies in rural areas by rural area. In the statistics of growth companies produced by Statistics Finland, growth is inspected according to the development of the number of personnel by growth period. A growth period covers four years, i.e. the first year of operations and the next three years.


The indicator will next be updated in spring 2024.

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