エストニア経済ニュース

2017年4月1日～5月8日のエストニア経済ニュース

●IT専門家，政官民の協力を呼びかけ
Let’s make a new Estonia. Peeter Smitt from Estonian IT company Nortal says in an article that Estonia’s innovation has stalled and the only way to get it started again is to gather companies, public officials and politicians behind the same table and start creating a new generation of services. According to Smitt, Estonia’s inventions such as X-Road, digital ID, land cadaster, business register, patent register, public procurement register, population register are all good to export, but there is a lack of new similar export articles. (Postimees, Page 12, April 4, 2017)
 
●英企業，テレポート社（自分に適した都市を見つける検索エンジンアプリ。頭脳労働者の移動をサポート）を買収
The Brits bought one of Estonia’s most famous start-ups. British company MOVE Guides announced that they have acquired Estonian start-up Teleport which was created by former managers of Skype for an undisclosed amount.  According to MOVE Guides CEO and founder Brynne Kennedy, “MOVE Guides and Teleport have a shared vision to democratize global mobility through software and data science.” Founder of Teleport Sten Tamkivi said: “We founded Teleport with the vision of helping free people move, by giving mobile millennials access to modern software tools to smoothly get to wherever they need to be to make the most of their potential.” According to Tamkivi, the deal helps both companies to grow faster. He added that the development of the first joint services is already ongoing. (Postimees, Page 13, April 4, 2017)
 
●LHV銀行，英国進出の計画
LHV expands to the UK. LHV bank will open a branch in the United Kingdom this year. In addition to offering retail, private, and corporate banking, LHV will start offering products to European payment services providers. The main service LHV would like to offer the payment services providers is a real time euro and pound payments service in 2018. (Postimees, Page 12, April 5, 2017)
 
●IDアプリ利用者，3万人突破
There are more than 30 000 Smart ID users in Estonia. 30 000 people have started using the new ID solution Smart ID in Estonia. There are currently around 50 000 Smart ID users in Latvia and more than 23 000 in Lithuania. (Postimees, Page 12, April 5, 2017)
 
●3月新車販売：＋10％
The market of new cars increased more than 10%. After a quieter February, the market of new cars once again rose in March, growing by 10.4% in annual comparison. In March, a total of 2232 new cars were sold in Estonia, 211 more than in the same month of the previous year. Toyota sold the most cars during the month (436), followed by Skoda (292) and Renault (148). (Äripäev, Page 7, April 6, 2017)
 
●ロボットによる出前サービス，順調
Food shipment with robots is going well in Tallinn. The robots of Starship Technologies, in cooperation with Finnish food courier company Wolt, have been fulfilling orders of clients on the streets of Tallinn for four months. According to one of the founders of Starship Allan Martinson, the cooperation is going well. Starship’s robots only operate in a certain area – in a radius of 2-3 kilometers around its office in Mustamäe borough in Tallinn. Martinson said that Starship uses its test robots in Tallinn and doesn’t plan to increase its carrying capacity, as Starship’s main focus is on the markets of the US, UK and Germany.  (Postimees, Page 12, April 7, 2017)
 
●3月外国人宿泊者数：＋18％
The amount of foreign tourists increased. Compared to February 2016, the amount of foreign tourists who stayed in Estonian accommodation establishments increased by 18%, while the total number of tourists (domestic and foreign) increased by 13%. (Päevaleht, Page 7, April 7, 2017)
 
●タリンク・フェリー，世界有数の規模の免税店
Tallink is one of the biggest tax-free department stores in the world. According to a presentation made to Tallink’s investors, Tallink is the biggest floating tax-free retail chain in the world and places 13th among all of the tax-free retail chains in the world. Tallink’s last year’s turnover was 938 million euros. (Postimees, Page 10, April 10, 2017)
 
●エリクソン・エストニア，売上高1位
Ericsson Estonia had the biggest turnover in Q1. According to statistics by Tax and Customs Board, Ericsson Eesti AS had the biggest turnover in the first quarter (342.9 million euros), followed by Eesti Energia (311.4 million euros) and Orlen Eesti (214.9 million euros). Maxima Eesti AS was the biggest employer with 3881 employees, followed by Rimi Eesti Food AS with 2732 employees and Selver AS with 2654 employees. (Postimees, Page 10, April 11, 2017)
 
●2月輸出：＋6％
Export increased by 6%. The export of goods in Estonia increased by 6% to 975.9 million euros and import by 1% to 1.07 billion euros in February compared to the same period last year, Statistics Estonia reports. (Äripäev, Page 16, April  11, 2017)
 
●コトカ前CIO，民間企業へ
Taavi Kotka’s new position was revealed. Estonian startup Plumbr, which is a developer of solutions for avoiding software performance errors, recently raised venture capital funding from Karma Ventures Fund, and appointed the former CIO of Estonia Taavi Kotka as its vice-president of sales. (Postimees, Page 10, April 12, 2017)
 
●報道の自由インデックス：13位エストニア
Estonia rose in Freedom House index. Estonia rose from position 14-17 to position 13-15 in the fresh press freedom index by Freedom House. (Postimees, Page 4, May 2, 2017)
 
●タクシファイ社（配車サービス），18カ国で活動
Taxify: The price and quality of taxi service is important to clients, not logos. After three years of operating, Taxify has expanded into 18 countries and has attracted two million euros of venture capital. Founders of Taxify Martin Villig and Markus Villig claim that taxi business has become a public transport service – clients don’t care about the logos on taxis anymore. Instead, the price and quality of the service are now important. According to Martin Villig, Estonian market only makes up 10-15% of Taxify’s total turnover. (Postimees, Page 8, May 2, 2017)
 
●レール・バルティック，損失40億ユーロの見込み
The full text of Rail Baltic cost-benefit analysis was revealed. RB Rail yesterday published the full text of EY cost-benefit analysis on its webpage. According to the analysis, the project’s investment costs would total 4.2 billion euros in present value and additional maintenance costs would be 909 million euros. The revenue from the project would only be 898 million euros and residual value 255 million euros, thus the total loss of the project would total 3.96 billion euros. (Postimees, Page 8, May 4, 2017)
 
●丸太計測アプリ，リトアニア進出
Estonian start-up is digitizing Lithuanian forestry. Estonian start-up Timbeter recently signed a contract with Lithuanian Directorate General of State Forests, which will start using the Estonian company’s application to measure stacked wood and digitize forestry. Timbeter won Estonian start-up competition “Ajujaht” (“Brain hunt”) three years ago. The agreement is worth a couple hundred thousand euros. (Postimees, Page 8, May 4, 2017)
 
●トヨタ，売上1位
4月の新車の乗用車売り上げ台数は，トヨタ1位（400台），シコーダ2位（278台），VW3位（191台）。トヨタの人気車種はAvensis，Auris，RAV4。（5月4日付ポスティメース紙ロシア語版，エストニア自動車販売・サービス企業組合）
Registration of new cars increased by 4.3%. In April, 2343 new passenger cars were registered in Estonia, which is 4.3% more than in the same month in 2016. Toyota topped the list of new car registrations with 378 units, followed by Skoda with 278 and Volkswagen with 209 units. (Postimees, Page 10, May 5, 2017)
 
●レクサス販売店，売上3倍に
Vendor of Lexus cars tripled its profit. Unelmauto AS, which mainly sells Lexus cars, increased its turnover by a third and its profit almost tripled. The company’s turnover in 2016 increased by 28.9% to 13.89 million euros, while its profit increased by 220 700 euros to 353 291 euros (+166%). (Äripäev, Page 6, May 5, 2017)
 
●ハープサル市，「世界一の観光地」に認定
Australian newspaper named Haapsalu town in its Best Finds 2016 list. The Sydney Morning Herald, which is one of the biggest newspapers in Australia, named Haapsalu the best town in its “Best Finds 2016” list. The paper writes: “It’s said that Pyotr Tchaikovsky was so taken with Haapsalu that he was inspired to compose Swan Lake, and the classical charm of the Estonian fishing town hasn't wilted in the subsequent 150 years. The town centre is almost enclosed by a lagoon-like piece of the Baltic Sea and lorded over by an incongruously large castle. Ranged across the foot of the castle is a line of Scandinavian-style buildings containing restaurants with outdoor decks that literally spill into the main street.” (Lääne Elu, May 4, 2017)
 
●ノルタル社（IT），米大手テレコムと契約
Nortal signed a contract with major US client. Estonian software developer Nortal has signed a two-year contract with a major U.S. telecommunications provider for its e-commerce solution, the volume of which will stretch into tens of millions of dollars. Nortal created a subsidiary in the US a few weeks ago and is in the process of assembling its team in Seattle. The contract does not allow Nortal to disclose the name of the client, while representatives of the company could say it is one of three leading cell phone operators in the US. Therefore, the solution is expected to reach at least 100 million users, as the biggest telecom enterprises in the US are Verizone (146 million users), AT&T (134 million users) and T-Mobile (73 million users). (Päevaleht, Page 8, May 8, 2017)