エストニア経済ニュース

●Alexela社，来年LNGターミナルの建設を開始
Alexela will start building LNG terminal latest in the beginning of the next year, hoping to sell first gas-volume in 2019. The necessity of Estonian local terminal became evident again last week, when Russia threatened for the first time to close European gas-taps in political reasons. By August it will be clear, whether European Commission supports the building of the regional LNG terminal, which would cover 5-15% of 300 million euros of costs. The main costumers of the terminal are expected to be large energy consumers. Regular gas-consumers would get access to LNG gas, when the gas-pipes are built. Elering confirms that they would definitely be ready to include the new LNG terminal to Estonian gas network, but building the necessary infrastructure would take at least a few years. The LNG terminal in Lithuania currently provides about 20% of Estonia’s gas import, but would not offer the supply security in case of a potential political gas crisis. (Postimees, page 10, April 20, 2015)
 

●Swedbank銀行，今年の経済成長予測を上方修正
Swedbank improved the prediction of this year’s economic growth from 2% to 2.1%. The reasoning is faster economic growth in the beginning of the year, active investments of the government and improved prospects in foreign markets. The economic growth should accelerate to 2.8% by 2016 and the prices would start rising again in the second half of this year. The salary level is expected to rise fast, as the working population and unemployment decrease. (Äripäev, page 6, April 22, 2015)
 

●フィンランドの不動産ファンド，タリン進出
Finnish real estate fund Asuntosalkku plans to buy hundreds of apartments in Tallinn. The fund that is specialized in renting real Estate started in Finnish market 17 years ago and has now expanded to Estonia. Within 1.5 years Asuntosalkku has bought more than 50 apartments in Tallinn and predicts to achieve similar capacity as in Finland (800 apartments). In addition to revenue from rental, they predict the increase in real estate value in 15-20 years’ time scale. (Postimees, page 3, April 23, 2015)
 

●家具業界，将来に楽観的展望
According to the survey of Swedbank the furniture producers are confident about the future. New market is Germany, which is seen as a target by 40% of the companies. 81% foresee an increase in turnover and predict that 82% of the production goes to export.(Äripäev, page 13, April 23, 2015)
 

●エストニアのスタートアップ企業Fortumo社，グーグル社の専門家を雇用
Tim Carter, a chairman of payment-solutions in Google, will start working in Fortumo, one of the most successful Estonian start-ups, that offers mobile-payment solutions. Fortumo is active in 88 countries and has offices in 6 countries: Estonia, US, China, India, Singapore and UK. Most important costumers are Microsoft, Facebook and 21st Century Fox. It is a pleasure to see that an Estonian company manages to attract foreign top-specialists. (Äripäev, page 6-7, April 27, 2015)
 

●雇用関連コストが上昇
Employment costs are growing fast in Estonia. In Estonia the employment costs are still below EU average, but the growth during the past year has been above the EU average. The costs of Estonian employers were 1.5 times higher than in Latvia and Lithuania, but three times smaller than in Finland. (Äripäev, page 17, April 30, 2015)
 

●再生可能エネルギー比率：17．3％
The amount of renewable energy that is used in Estonia shows a growing trend. In the first quarter renewable energy comprised 17.3% of the full energy consumption in comparison to 13.5% last year. Largest part of the renewable energy came from wind (53%). Energy from bio-mass, bio-gas and waste material comprised 44% of the renewable energy production. The number of solar-energy producers has been growing, but the volume of solar energy still remains low and not comparable to other energy sources. (Äripäev, page 48, April 30, 2015)
 

●海外への移住者は減少したが，人口は自然減
Fewer people are leaving Estonia according to the survey by Statistics Estonia. Emigration has decreased by 30% during the past three years. Immigration has remained the same, mainly due to Estonians returning home from other countries. Total Estonian population amounted to 1 313 271 people on January 1, 2015, which is 2666 less than a year ago. Population decrease was attributed to negative migration by 733 people and deaths outweighing births by 1933. (Eesti Päevaleht, page 3, May 6, 2015)
 

●欧州委員会によるエストニアの経済成長予測：本年成長率＋2．3％
European Commission published its prognoses for economic growth, leaving the winter-prediction for Estonia’s growth in GDP by 2.3% unchanged. The prognosis reports that despite the difficulties in Russian and Finnish market, Estonian economy managed to keep its growth rate, supported mainly by industry and internal trade. Consumption grew by 4.6%, influenced by raising salaries and low consumer-inflation. Export grew by 2.6% despite the sanctions against Russia, mostly in electronic products exported to Sweden that gives 20% of Estonia’s export.  Acceleration of economic growth is predicted for 2015 and 2016. Active consumption continues, supported by low inflation and raising salaries. Investments show only marginal growth due to insecurity caused by geopolitical tensions. Emigration and low birth rate continuously decrease the working-age population, which causes the rate of unemployment to decrease to 6% and continuation in the raise of salaries for more than 5%. (Äripäev, page 3, May 6, 2015)
 

●政府に対する信頼度：57％
Trust towards the government has increased according to the survey conducted in March 2015: 57% of people trust the government (in comparison to 54% in November 2014). The most trustworthy institution turned out to be the Rescue Department with the trust of 94% of Estonian citizens. (Eesti Päevaleht, page 3, May 8, 2015)
 

●TransferWise社（電子海外送金）社員，1年で3倍増
Estonian company TransferWise tripled the amount of employees in one year, hiring about 200 additional people. The team comprises of people of 30 different nationalities. Many of them have found a new home in Estonia. (Äripäev, page 6, May 13, 2015)
 

●OECDの学力調査（自然科学），76か国中7位
Estonian education in natural sciences (mathematics, chemistry, and physics) is the 7th best among the 76 countries according to the OECD rating. (Postimees, page 3, May 14, 2015)
 

●電子居住権（E-レジデンシー）申請サイト，開設
The electronic portal for applying for e-residency was launched yesterday at e-resident.gov.ee, allowing to submit e-residency applications from all around the world. (Postimees, page 13, May 14, 2015)
 

●エストニア企業、EU各国へデジタルサービス160万ユーロ相当を販売
Estonian companies sold digital services for 1.6 million euros to the private consumers in other EU member states. Estonian digital services were used in all European countries, mostly in Sweden, Denmark and Great Britain. (Eesti Päevaleht, page 11, May 15, 2015)
 

●スカイプ開発者による新製品Deekit
A group of former Skype developers came out with a new product Deekit – a virtual pad that allows exchanging ideas without being in the same room physically. It is a virtual space, where all team members can simultaneously make notes and drawings. (Äripäev, page 3, May 15, 2015)
 

●国営企業売却の可能性
Minister of economy Kristen Michal believes that several state-owned companies are mature for sales, pointing out Eesti Teed (performing road works) and EVR Cargo as examples. Michal believes that if the market is functioning well, state does not need to act as an active entrepreneur. Another possibility would be joining of similar companies, which would save money and create synergy.  Minster of entrepreneurship Urve Palo remains more cautious, pointing out that it requires careful analysis if, when and to which extent the companies are privatized, pointing out the danger that the state might need to pay higher price for some of the services afterwards. (Äripäev, page 4-5, May 19, 2015)
 

●住宅ローン金利が上昇
Interest in housing loans is growing in Baltic States according to the SEB bank. The amount of housing loans grew by 19.5% in Estonia and by 12.3% in Latvia, comparing 2013 and 2014. (Äripäev, page 7, May 19, 2015)
 

●北欧投資銀行副総裁，エストニアの競争力を分析
Gunnar Okk, the vice president of Nordic Investment Bank, analyses the competiveness of Estonia in his talk. He points out that Estonia has 20 years of experience but still lacks clear vision and in his opinion Estonia should quickly catch up with the Nordic economies. Estonia can use several of its advantages: 9th place in the world in PISA tests for junior high-school students; 36% of working population having university education (which is higher than OECD average of 32%); Tartu University and Tallinn University of Technology that belong to world’s top 500 universities; good language proficiency, especially in English and Russian; good IT and software literacy; Scandinavian working culture; honesty and very low level of corruption and  finally Estonia being well known as an IT-conscious state. (Äripäev, Juhtimiskonverents page 4-5, May 21, 2015)
 

●デジタル教科書のパイロットプロジェクト
New start-up EdFox hopes to increase the popularity of mathematics with their new innovative digital textbook. The idea is to use cloud-technology for teaching and having textbooks, workbooks, tests and other material in one smart device. The pilot project is to teach mathematics to 11th grade students and the method will be tested starting from autumn in 8 schools with 400 pupils. (Eesti Päevaleht, page 4, May 23, 2015)
 

●電子居住者が増加：73ヶ国から1，900人に
The number of Estonian e-residents is growing. The recently created e-residency portal e-reisdent.gov.ee has received 700 new applications within the past week. Estonian e-residents numbered 1900 from 73 different countries by May 19, who had registered during the test period, which required visiting Estonian police office twice in person. (Postimees, page 9, May 27, 2015)
 

●エストニアのペレット・メーカーが欧州最大に
The largest Estonian wood-pellet producer Graanul Invest buys its Latvian competitor Latgran and would become one of the largest pellet producer in Europe (Äripäev, page 6, May 25, 2015)
 

●スタートアップ企業に対する投資額が増加
During the first five months this year, Estonian start-ups have received more than 65 million euros from investors, which is almost as much as during the whole 2014. A large part of it comes from the 48 million euros of investment to Transfer Wise. (Äripäev, page 4-5, June 1, 2015)