Nordicum - Real Estate Annual Finland 2019 | Page 28

F innish Council of Shopping Centers released its latest business barometer report in October 2018. According to the report, the shopping center executives are facing the future with good cheer: 75  % of the respondents said that the booming economy will have a positive impact on the business during the next three years. Fur- thermore, the ongoing megatrend of urban- ization – in its Finnish form – was seen to support business (90% of the respondents). The shopping centers are of the opinion that both sales and number of patrons will keep increasing in the future, too. That’s not to say that the threat of e-commerce is not taken seriously. 86% of the respondents viewed that the growth of online retail definitely throws some shade on shopping centers. Still, Johanna Aho, COO of Finnish Council of Shopping Centers, says that it’s hard to say how much exactly. 28 Nordicum