Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia on Friday cut its 2009 handset market share estimate by four points to 34 per cent.

"Beginning in 2010, Nokia is revising its definition of the industry mobile device market that it uses to estimate industry volumes," Nokia said in a statement.

"This is due to improved measurement processes and tools that enable Nokia to have better visibility to estimate the number of mobile devices sold by certain new entrants in the global mobile device market."

"These include vendors of legitimate, as well as unlicensed and counterfeit, products with manufacturing facilities primarily centred around certain locations in Asia and other emerging markets."

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Finland's trade deficit fell to about 55 million euros in January from some 95 million in the year-ago period, the National Bureau of Customs said in a statement Friday.

Exports fell by about four per cent year-on-year with imports dropping by about five per cent from the year-ago period.

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US business magazine Forbes on Thursday included Antti Herlin, the main owner of Finnish lift and escalator maker Kone, on its list of US dollar billionaires.

Mr Herlin is the first Finn to be featured on the Forbes list.

Forbes estimated Mr Herlin's net worth at about 1.3 billion US dollars, earning him 773rd place along with 54 other well-heeled people.

Carlos Slim Helu, a Mexican telecommunications tycoon, topped the Forbes list with a fortune of some 53.5 billion dollars.

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Finland's Civil Aviation Administration (Finavia) said in a statement Thursday it would introduce incentives to carriers to raise passenger numbers.

Finavia added it would reimburse carriers three euros for each extra passenger this year and two euros next year.

"We want to be involved in supporting the aviation business together with the airlines," said in the statement Kimmo Ruotsalainen, Finavia's marketing director.

"Finavia aims to provide a cost-efficient business environment. Even before the discount, we were one of Europe's cheapest airports." Finavia runs 25 airports.

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The Finnish Transport Workers' Union (AKT) and the country's logistics companies struck a deal on a pay and conditions agreement on Wednesday, averting a strike that had been scheduled to begin on Thursday.

The deal is based on a settlement proposal handed by Esa Lonka, the government's labour market conciliator.

The two-year agreement is broadly in line with other parts of the transport industry.

Both sides said the logistics sector's agreement had no bearing on the stevedore dispute.

AKT dockers went on strike last week, crippling the country's foreign trade.

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Finland's Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed nearly all applications for leave to appeal prison sentences read last year to nine former executives of Jippii, a telecommunications company, for bookkeeping, disclosure and insider trading offences.

Ilpo Kuokkanen, a former chairman of Jippii, and Harri Johannesdahl, ex-managing director, are among those to go to prison.

The Helsinki appeals court had handed a two-year sentence to Mr Kuokkanen and a 22-month one to Mr Johannesdahl.

The Supreme Court granted leave to appeal to one former Jippii executive.

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Statistics Finland (SF) said in a statement Wednesday that the country's working day-adjusted industrial output had remained flat year-on-year in January after a six-per cent fall in December.

The country's seasonally adjusted output fell by 1.8 per cent year-on-year in January, the agency added.

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Talks between the Finnish Transport Workers' Union (AKT) and the Port Operators' Association ended without a deal late on Tuesday, with the two sides agreeing to resume talks at the government labour market conciliator's office the following day.

The AKT started an open-ended nationwide stevedore strike Thursday last week, shutting down most of the country's foreign trade.

Esa Lonka, the conciliator, opted not to submit a settlement proposal after Tuesday's talks.

Finland's struggling flag carrier Finnair said Tuesday that its overall traffic, measured in revenue passenger kilometres, had fallen in February by 9.3 per cent year-on-year, with scheduled traffic picking up by just over two per cent.

"The faint glimmer of a recovery is no more than that," Christer Haglund, a Finnair spokesman, said in a statement.

"Ticket prices are still low, so emerging growth has brought no significant financial boost yet."

Finnair's passenger load factor stood at 80.2 per cent in February, up by about four points from the year-ago period.

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Finnish drug maker Orion was the first company affected by a series of stoppages by managerial staff in the country's chemical industry that began on Tuesday.

Over the next couple of weeks about 7,500 managerial staff working in the country's top 20 chemical companies are to take part in the strikes.

Pay and conditions talks between the Federation of Professional and Managerial Staff (YTN) and the Chemical Industry Federation broke down late on Monday.

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