The prime minister of Finland has blamed Apple for the economic downturn his country is experiencing which saw it lose its AAA credit rating on Friday.

Alexander Stubb said the remarkable success of the California-based tech giant has had a negative impact on his country’s two biggest industries - technology and paper.

‘We have two champions which went down,’ Stubb told CNBC on Monday.

Alexander Stubb, left, has said on Monday that the remarkable success of California-based tech giant Apple has had a negative impact on his country’s two biggest industries - technology and paper. Nokia, right, was once the global market leader in mobile phone handsets but has been superseded by the likes of Apple

Not only has handset manufacturer Nokia suffered due to the success of smartphones such as the iPhone, but Finland’s paper industry has also fallen on hard times.

The country is a key production site for Europe's biggest paper producers, UPM-Kymmene and Stora Enso, but Stubb said the success of tablet devices like the iPad had hit the sector hard.

‘A little bit paradoxically I guess one could say that the iPhone killed Nokia and the iPad killed the Finnish paper industry, but we'll make a comeback,’ he predicted.

Once a global market leader in handsets, Nokia has struggled to compete with not only Apple, but also Google and Samsung.

The Finnish company sold its entire phones business to Microsoft in April, after the two companies had worked together on several smartphones.

The forest and paper industry has also been hit hard in recent years by the emergence of tablet computers and e-readers.

The paper killer? The Finnish Forest Research Institute warned in its 2013 end of year report of a ‘poor situation’ for paper production in the country and the rise of tablets such as the iPad is to blame

The Finnish Forest Research Institute warned in its 2013 end of year report of a ‘poor situation’ for paper production in the country and predicted that it would continue to contract in 2014.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's downgraded Finland's sovereign debt rating from AAA to AA+ on Friday, citing persistent economic growth problems.

The country has yet to return to its 2008 economic output levels and besides the problems in the mobile phone and paper industries, dwindling exports due to the euro zone crisis and the crisis over Ukraine were also blamed.

Finland's 'downgrade reflects our view of the risk that the Finnish economy could experience protracted stagnation because of its aging population and shrinking workforce, weakening external demand, loss of global market share... and relatively rigid labour market,' S&P said in its report.

Despite the depressed forecast, Stubb remained upbeat on both industries.

‘Forest is coming back in terms of bio energy and other things. And actually a new Nokia is emerged in terms of (Nokia) Networks,’ he said.

‘Usually what happens is that when you have dire times you get a lot of innovation and I think from the public sector our job is to create the platform for it.’