Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia. State in the Baltic region of northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia (343 km), and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation (338.6 km). Across the Baltic Sea it is found in the west of Sweden and Finland in the north. Estonia’s territory covers 45,227 km² (17,462 square miles) and is influenced by a temperate climate. Estonians are a people of Finnish origin, and the only official language, Estonian, is closely related to Finnish.
With a population of 1.34 million, Estonia is one of the least populated members of the European Union, the Eurozone and NATO. Estonia has the highest GDP per person of any country that used to be part of the Soviet Union. Estonia is classified as a high-income economy by the World Bank and a high-income member of the OECD. The United Nations classifies Estonia as a developed country with a very high Human Development Index.
As a member of the European Union, the Estonian economy is classified as high-income by the World Bank. Due to its rapid growth in the economy, Estonia has often been described as the Baltic Tiger. From the 1 of January of 2011, Estonia adopted the euro and became the Member State of the euro area 17.
According to Eurostat published the 15 of November of 2010, Estonia has the lowest ratio of public debt to the GDP among EU countries, 7.2 percent at the end of 2009. The world’s media has lately started to describe Estonia as a Nordic country, with an emphasis on economic development, political and cultural differences between Estonia and its less successful Baltic neighbors.
A balanced budget, almost non-existent public debt, low income tax rate, free trade regime, competitiveness of the commercial banking sector, innovative electronic services and even mobile-based services are the characteristics of the economy. market share of Estonia.
According to Philosophynearby.com, Estonia is producing approximately 75% of its electricity consumption. More than 85% of what is generated with oil extracted locally. Alternative energy sources such as wood, peat, and biomass constitute approximately 9% of primary energy production. Renewable part of wind energy was about 6% of total consumption in 2009. Estonia’s imports of petroleum derivatives is from Western Europe and Russia. Oil shale energy, telecommunications, textiles, chemicals, banking, services, food and fishing, wood, shipbuilding, electronics, and transportation are the key sectors of the economy. The ice-free port of Muuga, near Tallinn, is a modern facility with transshipment capacity, a high-capacity grain elevator, frozen and cold storage, and new oil tanker loading capacity. The railway serves as a conduit between the West and Russia, and other points in the East. Estonia is part of the Schengen zone, the EU single market and the euro zone.
Today Estonia is mainly influenced by developments in Sweden, Finland and Germany – the three main trading partners. Recently, the government significantly increased its spending on innovation. The Prime Minister of the Estonian Reform Party has declared his goal of bringing Estonia’s GDP per capita into the EU TOP 5 by 2022. Ireland is sometimes seen as a model for Estonia’s economic future.
Due to the global economic recession, Estonian GDP decreased by 1.4% in the 2nd quarter of 2008, more than 3% in the 3rd quarter of 2008, and more than 9% in the 4th quarter of 2008. The Estonian Government made a negative supplementary budget, which was approved by the Riigikogu. The budget revenue was reduced for the year 2008 by 6,100 million Estonian crowns and expenditures by 3,2 billion Estonian crowns. In 2010, the economic situation stable and export-based growth began. In the fourth quarter of 2010, Estonia’s industrial production increased by 23% compared to the previous year. In 2011, Danske Bank forecasts Estonian economic growth at 3.9 percent.
According to Eurostat data, Estonian PPS GDP per capita stood at 67% of the EU average in 2008. In March 2011, Estonia’s average gross monthly salary was € 843.
However, there are big differences in GDP between different areas in Estonia. Today, more than half of Estonia’s GDP is created in the capital, Tallinn. In 2008, Tallinn’s GDP per capita stood at 172% of the Estonian average. This brings the GDP per capita number in Tallinn at 115% of the European Union average, exceeding the average levels of other countries.
The unemployment rate was 10.1% in April 2011.
Natural resources
Although Estonia is generally poor in resources, the land still offers a wide variety of minor resources. The country has large deposits of oil, shale and limestone, along with forests that cover 50.6% of the land. In addition to shale and limestone oil, Estonia also has large reserves of phosphorite, pitchblende and granite that are not fully or extensively exploited.
Significant amounts of rare earth oxides are found in tailings accumulated from 50 years of uranium, shale and loparite mining at Sillamäe. Due to the rise in prices of rare earths, the extraction of these oxides has become economically viable. The country currently exports around 3,000 tonnes per year, which represents around 2 percent of world production.
Industry and environment
The food, construction, and electronics industries are among the most important branches of Estonian industry. In 2007, the construction industry employed more than 80,000 people who make up about 12% of the nation’s workforce. Another important industrial sector is the machinery and chemical industry, which is located mainly in Ida-Viru county and around Tallinn.
The oil and shale mining industry, which is also concentrated in the East and Estonia, produces about 90% of the electricity in the entire country. Shale oil is widely used, however it has also caused serious damage to the environment. Although the amount of pollutants emitted into the atmosphere have been decreasing since the 1980s, the air is still polluted with sulfur dioxide from the rapidly developing mining industry by the Soviet Union in the 1950s. In some areas the coastal seawater is polluted, mainly around the Sillamäe industrial complex.
Estonia is a dependent country in terms of energy and its production. Many local and foreign companies have been investing in renewable energy sources. The importance of wind power has seen a steady increase in Estonia and the total amount of wind power production is almost 60 MW, while at the same time, around 399 MW worth of projects are currently being developed and More than 2,800 MW worth of projects are proposed in the Lake Peipus area and the coastal areas of Hiiumaa.
