HELSINKI (AFP) - The port strike has ended – but will continue to hurt the Nordic country's industry and economy as a whole.

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The dock workers' strike that shut Finland's seaports for more than two weeks and crippled its foreign trade ended Friday but will continue to hurt industry and the economy as a whole, observers said.

"The impacts continue beyond the strike as orders have been lost, as has Finland's reputation," Janne Huovari, an economist at the Pellervo Economic Research Institute, PTT, told AFP.

The vital forestry sector was seen suffering most when the Nordic country's ports ground to a virtual standstill after some 3,000 stevedores walked off the job on March 4 over a labour dispute that roused emotions across Finland.

Nearly 70 percent of Finland's paper production capacity was shut and some 4,300 forestry industry workers were temporarily laid off as firms, including top magazine papermaker UPM-Kymmene, closed machines when storage space and raw materials ran out.

"The forest industry in Finland lost orders for good because clients can no longer rely on the delivery ability of Finnish factories," said Jari Forss, executive vice president of the Finnish Forest Industries Federation.

The Transport Workers Union AKT and the Finnish Port Operators Association finally accepted a compromise agreement presented Friday by National Conciliator Esa Lonka after marathon talks to end weeks of wrangling over key sticking points like severance pay and the use of sub-contracted labour.

The two sides said work at Finland's ports would resume "as soon as possible" and by Tuesday at the latest.

But the effects of the strike would likely be felt for years to come in export-reliant Finland.

The main industry lobby EK went so far as to call for radical reform of the industrial action system, saying society was left "weaponless" when workers in key roles, like the dockers, went on strike and disrupted the entire economy.

Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen echoed the sentiment, saying the years ahead would indicate the extent of the damage, according to Finnish media.

Clearing inventories at harbours would take "at least several weeks", the forest industry federation said.

AKT rejected criticism as unjustified, pointing out that the dock workers were legally entitled to fight for their rights.

"I am very surprised by this hegemony that has emerged that the stevedores are supposedly driving this country to destruction," AKT spokeswoman Hilkka Ahde said.

The technology sector, which accounts for 60 percent of all exports, also said it suffered from a lack of raw material and component imports, and from lost deliveries.

Around 80 percent of Finland's foreign trade travels through its ports, and the strike was a blow to the export-reliant country, which is scrambling to return to growth after being hit hard by the global economic downturn.

Finland's gross domestic product (GDP) fell 7.8 percent in 2009, it's biggest annual fall since 1918 when it was newly independent of Russia.

The Pellervo Economic Research Institute estimated that in just two weeks the strike ate away roughly 350 million euros (473 million dollars) from its forecast for Finland's 2010 economic growth of 3.2 percent.