Rõivas: Economic growth below expectations
Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas recommended waiting for Statistics Estonia's revised figures, however he admitted that he was unsatisfied with the 0.6-percent GDP growith in Q2 as cited in the agency's flash estimate.
"It is worth being careful with Statistics Estonia's flash estimates before proceding to draw any deciding conclusions as Statistics Estonia has later adjusted these flash estimates by an entire few percentage points, so let's consider this calmly," said Rõivas at a government press conference.
"The fact is, an annual growth of 0.6 percent is definitely below expectations," added the prime minister. "Among the causes is, first and foremost, a weak external environment, was the Bank of Estonia and the Minstry of Finance's assessment as well."
According to the prime minister, in the case of a weak external environment, one of the strongest influencing factors in turn is the fact that Russia's economy continues to do very badly and their political decisions continue to reject
Russia's economy is doing very badly and continued their political decisions, for example, continues to reject the Estonian agricultural goods, for example.
During the first half of this year, the sale of shale oil has also dropped significantly, however Rõivas is more optimistic about the future. "If we look toward the future, then in the case of shale oil there have also been more positive developments," he explained. "Due to the fact that the government agreed to a more favorable tax environment for the oil shale sector in crisis, it will be possible to reopen production [plants] which had remained close until now."
On the positive side of Estonia's economic situation, Rõivas also highlighted the facts that the tourism sector is doing well ad that unemployment has decreased significantly. At the same time, however, he found that the increase in receipt of taxes can be regarded as an economic upswing.
Statistics Estonia will publish the revised estimate of the country's Q2 2016 GPD
Editor: Editor: Aili Sarapik