Helsinki

THE "sick man of Europe" - the epithet Finland's finance minister uses to describe his country - may be about to encounter a new hurdle. While the government's reform agenda has won praise from rating companies and economists, its slowness in moving forward with concrete measures is starting to unsettle businesses, according to some economists.

"The government has been hesitant in its reforms," said Juhana Brotherus, an economist at housing-credit institution Hypo in Helsinki. "I am hearing many comments from small and medium-sized companies that they are freezing investments because they don't know how reforms that are underway will influence the cost of labour."