Raul Kirjanen: This government is like a football manager who watches from the pub

On the same day the government proudly presented its economic growth plan, businessman Raul Kirjanen announced the relocation of Estonia's largest industrial investment south of the border, to Latvia.
Speaking to Vikerraadio's "Reedene intervjuu" broadcast Friday, Kirjanen filled in the details on the decision-making process facing a capital owner, the origins of concerns about Estonia's forests, and the options for Estonia to rekindle its economy in a long interview which follows in its entirety.
Interviewer Anvar Samost: The investment and economic environments in various countries are often talked about, with entire state agencies, ministries, and institutions dedicated to shaping and promoting that investment climate. States' investment environments are compared with one another, especially among neighboring states such as Estonia, Finland, and Latvia.
That said, as a long-standing business journalist, I have yet to personally met a theoretical, or even mythical investor, whom these investment environment are targeted at in the marketing – that specific individual who, figuratively speaking, chooses between investing €100 million in the Estonian or Latvian economies, based on certain metrics.
However, today, I have a major opportunity as we have Raul Kirjanen with us, a rare guest, one who recently chose to invest €700 million, but not in Estonia: In Latvia's economy. So what for you made Estonia's investment environment so unattractive?
Raul Kirjanen: The question isn't so much about being less or more attractive. As an investor, especially in industry, you have to commit a significant amount of capital to one location and for a very long period of time. You can't just divest that capital or relocate it somewhere else. When thinking about various destinations to invest in, legal certainty, clarity, and the desire of a country and a society to see and welcome certain investments, are clearly major criteria.
We have done a lot of work in Latvia with Graanul Invest. We've always liked the investment environment there, and have always managed well there. So I see no conflict there.
It's been stated for 10 years now that Estonia has a poor industrial policy, a them frequently discussed by entrepreneurs, but that hasn't really changed anything.
Samost: What do you mean by Estonia having a poor industrial policy?
Kirjanen: Take the forestry and timber sector. This has been an easy target for any politician who felt a lack of [political] support. Conservation areas have thus been significantly expanded.
When the war in Ukraine started and industry turned to the government or the State Forest Management Centre (RMK) for support in terms of raw materials, this all seemed quite whimsical, to certain groups. That's the investment climate for you.
I have also been to Latvia quite a bit and continue to communicate with people there, but I haven't received the impression that Latvia's investment environment is better than Estonia's, even in terms of forestry policy. Instead, throughout the period following the restoration of independence (in the early 1990s – ed.), Latvians have tended to look up to Estonia, feeling that many things are better here, including the investment environment. So are we at a turning point now, or have I missed something?
Estonia has been the leader in the Baltics in terms of economic growth, GDP, etc. However, if you look at what has been happening in Latvia and Lithuania over the last five years, there is a societal expectation that, as we transition from an industry-based to a service and IT sector-based economy, both Lithuania and Latvia have been actively trying to attract major industrial investments.
Lithuania has a large bioeconomy cluster, in which the state plans to invest up to a billion euros, so that is clearly booming. In a similar vein, Latvia is very actively seeking industrial investments, especially innovative ones; new economy industrial investments.
That means they are simply more active as a state, and have managed to create an environment where, for example, you yourself see it as better to build your business there.
I can clearly state today that Latvia's hunger - perhaps that's the wrong word but anyway - their hunger for investment of that kind is significantly greater than Estonia's.
On listening to what Estonian politicians have been saying about attracting investment, the recent saga of the offshore wind farms springs to mind, in which the climate minister and the secretary general at the climate ministry both said that offshore is needed to ensure stable, low-priced electricity for large industrial firms coming to Estonia. If I recall correctly, one of the two mentioned wood chemicals firm Fibenol, which you are a majority stakeholder in but which now comprises the investment going to Latvia
Talking the investment environment once again: Or country lacks any lobby group that stands up for the industry.
Lengthy discussions have been going on about the need for an industrial secretary general, or deputy secretary general. But it seems to me that the government holds a rather poor picture on what is happening in this sector in Estonia; what should be happening, or what could start happening.
In a similar way, I have read that we need three times more energy all of a sudden, because of the major investments coming in. I definitely don't have all the information to hand; likely the state's investment agency does, but I don't know who these incoming investors or major consumers who require this electricity might be.
The media has also repeatedly asked the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, the Ministry of Climate, and the Enterprise and Innovation Foundation (EISA), about these supposed major foreign investments coming into Estonia, including those which would be major electricity consumers, yet the answers to these questions have not exactly been thick on the ground. There was a time last year when the Minister of Economic Affairs was talking about the magnet factory as one example, but this is an expansion of an existing local industry. In fact that's the only case study which has been referenced.
For sure, a lot of discussions and debates remain confidential until they finally come out. But I don't have that information to hand.
As for how things went in Latvia, did any high-ranking official, someone from the investment agency, or any minister, contact you to the effect that: "Hey, we read in the media that you have a pilot plant in Central Estonia which looks like it's going to be a big factory, so we would like to have that actual factory for ourselves"? Or did you somehow end up there [in Latvia]? Were the Latvians proactive? How did it go?
Fibenol is not a one-factory project, and hopefully, while the first factory will now be in Latvia, that doesn't mean Fibenol couldn't ever build a facility in Estonia or, for example, France, Finland, Sweden, or anywhere really.
When we were scouting out locations for the first factory, my desire was for it to be close enough that construction and development would be relatively easy to manage.
Close enough to Estonia?
Yes, since our development team is based in Tallinn, and a lot in Imavere, for this reason Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Sweden were all on the map – we just looked at where resources are.
Meaning wood and timber?
Yes, wood. We looked at where the resources we need are currently poorly utilized, or where there could be potential. For this definite reason, Estonia and Latvia were considered.
Our location selection chief has been communicating with the Latvian investment agency, LIAA, for two years now. We have been speaking with many local municipalities in Latvia too, so we have quite a bit of experience working with and in Latvia now, moving from the bottom up, and from the top down. However, to explore how such a factory would fit in in Latvia, well we definitely did that ourselves.

Call it coincidence or not, on the same day Fibenol announced the signing of a protocol of intent with the Latvian government to locate a €700 million factory in Latvia, the Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications unveiled its economic development plan. Minister Tiit Riisalo, accompanied by some pretty illustrious slides, outlined that the goal is to double the size of Estonia's economy in the next decade or so. Was this timing intentional; the press conference having been known a week in advance, so as to send a signal and announce an hour earlier that the largest investment in recent years would in fact not be coming to Estonia?
I think it was rather just an unfortunate coincidence.
Unfortunately, I don't have the clout to be able to convene four Latvian ministers in Riga as and when I need them, especially when something is being introduced in Estonia. This was a long coordinated and planned process.
The fact that it led to such media coverage in Estonia came as quite a surprise to us. Signing the cooperation memorandum is but one step on a long journey.
But since many top Latvian politicians were involved and had signed, they surely wanted the media coverage. Considering it might generate interest here too, we published a press release, so as to be transparent and direct with everyone.
Have you read through the Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs' economic development plan?
I've skimmed it over and, again, this was a very unfortunate coincidence.
I believe that if the plan is there to grow and develop the Estonian economy, that is a very good thing, but a plan alone is little more than a piece of paper. We need the muscle and the organs; the whole structure, to actually commence with it.
It seems to me that, since the Estonian investment went to Latvia, meaning it really hit the Estonians hard, a vital discussion has since emerged about what should have been done differently. I hope that this discussion can actually bear fruit.
What, then, could the Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications do differently? If you had to author an economic growth plan with your colleagues, what would you have included?
Surveying industrial businesses in Estonia, the main local resources are bioresource and human resources – so how can we meld these two things together, so that they bring as great a benefit as possible to society?
We talk about it lot, and have been talking about this for 20 years: Exporting pulpwood, but in actuality, we export about the same amount of it as we do of grain.
However, this gets discussed relatively little. Estonia exports around one to two million tons of grain a year. But why do we export grain? Why don't we use it for something?
A good example of the latter would be oat milk production. Such factories should be opened every three months, in order to utilize local bioresources, be it timber or arable raw materials, in a cool way. This is actually a huge opportunity for us, and it is definitely one which needs to be developed.
Second, there has been talk for years about education. The industry states we need engineers and specialists, but on the other hand, we have a narrow in mathematics today, one which pushes a large number of young people away from taking engineering science before they have even got to high school, not to mention the shortage of teachers in science subjects.
So desires versus what is actually done are quite a long way apart.
But that same economic development plan essentially talks about these things – ie. we need to add value to local resources, create higher-value products, and press our qualified workforce into good use. This means the right words are all there, at least.
However, when I read the plan, it did seem more like a litany of platitudes, which were perhaps not thoroughly thought through in a serious manner by their authors. Similar principles have been enshrined in some development plans for 10 or 20 years now, one way or another. We all know how it goes when it comes to these development plans. They ultimately get read through and for the last time when they are completed and filed away.
Later on, should anyone want to prove something via dispute, they go and check thing sup, but then they are told: "Sorry, now we are starting to compile a new development plan because this one is already four or five years old." This is exactly what happened with Estonia's energy economy development plan, for instance.
The fact that the Minister of Economic Affairs and Communications comes out with a plan to develop the economy is a very nice thing. Yet I think the economic development perspective won't alter significantly, not until the entire government states that it is a major priority.
They certainly do say that.
It's the same in business; you can make a plan to grow and grow your company and start doing some very good things, and make a lot of money and so on. In and of itself, this idea might be very nice, but it's just a start. Then you need to set out what you will be doing this month, next month, and so on. What kind of talent do I need in order to progress? What happens a year from now? Where do I need to have got to in two years? This is how the bones need to be fleshed out. And for as long as that's not there, it remains a pipe dream. There is still a long way to go.
If we consider Estonia's history; there have been almost two decades where the country took in plenty of inward investment, and the standard of living and wealth of the Estonian people grew rapidly, the nation's GDP of grew very quickly, and some unprecedented companies emerged that were very successful in international competition, be it Hansabank (now Swedbank – ed.) or [shipping line] Tallink. But then again, the Estonian state didn't have any multi-page plans with metrics set out, and Estonian politicians didn't talk about the need to make an additional support measure for business in order to tweak our investment ecosystem in the right way.
Are we as a society in fact doing too much in terms of shaping this environment, resulting in more and more market-distorting support measures, more regulations, restrictions, rules, and plans, from which the state doesn't want to deviate, while it doesn't allow others to deviate either? Oddly enough, this is the main hindrance – the more we build up the investment environment or economic competitiveness via administrative measures, the more complicated it in fact becomes.
I totally agree that regulation alone clearly does not advance an economy; over-regulation is rather a limiting phenomenon, and 20-30 years ago, we had a lot of global competitive advantages.
We had a lot of available workforce which was very well qualified and highly motivated in improving their living conditions. We had relatively cheap energy. Alarge part of the economic growth and investments that came to Estonia came via the organic convergence with the Nordic economies.
However nowadays we're in a somewhat of a different situation.
We have relatively few people. When we think about what new industry should be today, we don't consider whether we want industries which provide a thousand jobs; instead we desire industries that create the most added value per person. We're not actually interested in the kind of thing which gives jobs to a thousand people any more. And in fact that is we no longer have those thousand people at hand.
I heard something anecdotal a few days ago about another industrial firm operating in Ida-Viru County which is making investments and wanted to make use of a state support measure. But it turned out they didn't qualify for the support measure, as, again, it required creating a large number of jobs. This company is a large one and their investment is substantial, but it is of such a hi-tech nature there is little point in creating, say, even 200 jobs. There might be a few dozen workplaces to be created, but nothing can be done about that; the rules are as they are, so the company must cope on its own.
Regionally speaking things are a bit different. Ida-Viru County is in a slightly different situation, as there there are potential national risks, geopolitical risks, plus the eventual departure of a very large employer – the oil shale sector.
However, if today one were to construct a factory in southeastern Estonia which required 500 workers, those 500 would have to travel from Tartu, or perhaps even further afield.
Today, the goal cannot be merely to create jobs at average salaries; the aim must be to establish high-value-added companies capable of paying wages even if the salary spiral continues for another decade to come.
So, those competitive advantages of Estonia in the 1990s that you have referenced – a very eager, qualified workforce, cheap energy, and the like – these have disappeared by today?
This includes the geopolitical situation, which was a clear reason behind many significant investments too.

We have discussed Estonia's international competitiveness and resources, where one surely is a well-educated populace, albeit a somewhat scarce one. Another is everything standing on Estonian soil, including its forests (which cover around half of the land – ed.). However, this has become an increasingly complicated issue in recent years too – it seems that Estonia is running out of forest, so it must be protected at all costs. It should not be exploited via logging, while some believe it shouldn't even be managed at all, except perhaps in ways which promote eco-tourism.
Why has it come to this? Historically, Estonians have taken a highly practical and pragmatic attitude towards the forest. Estonia has, and still does have, a considerable number of forest owners who ought to be interested in forest management.
As for the aspect of the question about the forests disappearing...
I didn't say that; I meant the reverse of that.
Estonia has plenty of continually growing forested land. I believe that the larger forest owners at least have become more aware of how to better grow and manage this land, and much of our effort goes into how to raise forest growth per hectare.
But why this perspective has emerged is more a question for the social scientists. I think it's not directly related to forests in fact. A much bigger general problem relates to anxiety about climate. There's a lot of talk about climate issues, that things are starting to change; how much it rains or snows, or about the wind. This is fertile ground, I would say, for radical environmental anxiety but which is not based in fact.
You can see forest. It's easy to see when a forest is being managed –for instance if trees are being felled, there's a clear spatial disturbance.
The fact that the same forest will have regrown in 40 years comes after 40 years. You go there next year, and the trees are still tiny. Perhaps after five years they might be as tall as you are, but they are still small, which makes it seem like the forest has gone. There's a lot of panic about that.
Another topic we touched on a bit before is that since the issue is a complicated one for politicians, explanations have been largely avoided at the state level.
Every environment minister we've had in recent years has tended to use confusion and also populism, in order to to boost their own rating. This means ordinary people can't understand what's really happening.
It has been that we require new facts and data, but I think we have that much data on Estonian forests that the information on little Estonia's forest actually outstrips that of forest in the whole of Africa.
The data exists, the science of forestry exists, and our forests are doing very well.
You are, correct me if I'm wrong, one of Estonia's largest forest owners?
Well, yes, I own a firm which has a lot of forest holdings.
But your aim certainly isn't to treat the forest as a nature reserve – you'd like to earn a return on that investment.
With any forest ecosystem nowadays, there are conservation values to consider, and while perhaps they are even a little overprotected, it remains clear to us that investment is the main aim.
I have acquaintances who aren't as large forest owners, but who have for instance inherited a chunk of forested land, and it's amazing how much clearer their view can be on Estonian forest or environmental policy.
A personal relationship with the forest dramatically changes one's perspective. Have you considered nudging society towards the situation like that in Finland, where proportionally speaking, there are many more forest owners than in Estonia, so that there would also be many people in Estonia who have an ownership relationship with the forest, or at least within their family or family circle? Perhaps that would reduce anxiety and misunderstanding about what the forest actually is?
I think that would be a very good idea, and it is vital for Estonian citizens, and people living in Estonia, to be landowners.
That forest owners see things a bit differently stems from their understanding of the processes and what happens in the forest.
They see things through a longer-term perspective
The average city-dweller probably only goes to the forest because they want to walk on an RMK nature trail, so perhaps a longer understanding of what actually happens in the forest can be difficult for them to come to.
We have purchased much forest land, not to hide it, and also from private owners – families who primarily got their forest land back. Often at the turning point of generational change, when the grandparents have died and then the forest is sold. I'll be honest here a very large majority of these sales are related to fears about environmental protection requirements.
That an environmental agency or another institution will come along and say that your forest contains a nesting site for sea eagles?
Well, a nesting site for sea eagles is a bit of an exaggeration.
It's rare.
But it's sufficient that you have some species of plant or shrub, or a fallen tree on a wet area starts spawning some fungi. It doesn't need to be a sea eagle is the point. Such reasons can be found in almost any naturally and well-managed forest.
Do you personally know Estonian entrepreneurs such as, for instance, Margus Linnamäe?
I wouldn't say I know him personally, but we talk on occasion.
He's also a major forest owner, although unlike the case with you, verifying this information via the public records might prove difficult. Have you talked forests with him?
I haven't talked with Margus Linnamäe about his own forest and forest management; we've talked a little about his media outlets' approach to the topic.
In a democratic society, we have freedom of opinion, and our opinions are very different from each other.
From your conversations, did you grasp why the media group owned by Margus Linnamäe, Postimees Grupp, is so keen on addressing the forest issue? One doesn't have to be a dedicated analyst to realize that any business dealing with the forest is coming under critical scrutiny there. Figuratively speaking, if we see the word "forest" in a Postimees headline, we can be sure the view will be boiled down to either "don't do anything" or "it's very bad that something has been done." Why is that the case?
I can't read Margus Linnamäe's mind; I don't know why he seems to think that way.
We have indeed discussed this topic. I haven't fully come to understand his thoughts on it. He certainly has his circle of acquaintances who see forestry a bit differently from the way he does.
I think he's quite an active forest manager in his own holdings, managing the forest just like all other owners. So I can't say why he holds such an attitude.
I, too, am unable to answer that question, but it is at least a fact that from the perspective of discussion in the public arena, you can rest assured that the traditional, conventional forest management you have referenced always comes up against critical scrutiny. The other major media conglomerate (Ekspress Meedia – ed.) takes a slightly different view of the forest and the environment, primarily stemming from the international narrative on climate change anxiety. As a forest owner and timber industry participant, you constantly come under negative scrutiny from both the two major media groups.
When I led and was the majority shareholder in Graanul Invest, then...
...It should be noted that Graanul Invest is a major Estonian concern but has now mostly come under US ownership via the largest investment fun in that country, though you and your business partners still own a 20 percent stake. Graanul Invest mainly produces wood chip pellets for heating purposes, from Estonian timber and woody biomass offcuts.
It surely produces that, though not only from [raw material from] Estonia but also from Latvia, Lithuania, and the US too; we have plants everywhere.
Back when I was the major owner of Graanul Invest, there was talk practically every week about pellets – how bad they are and how Graanul Invest has done... After I sold my stake in Graanul Invest.
Perhaps the reason I'm caught between a rock and a hard place is that if you're the beacon or tower, you're the one that gets struck by lightning. It's interesting for the media and the reader, and it engages more clicks.
My good friend Anders Anderson went and invested in real estate, then the media headline was "Kirjanen's business partner invested..." meaning my last name has taken on a life of its own.

That is indeed the logic of the media. But about those wood pellets: Your current choice in the timber industry and that your business partners might also be viewed critically compared with what you had done before. Producing wood pellets is a much simpler operation than producing complex wood-chemical products.
That is definitely the case. Had we started up Graanul Invest 20 years ago and I got the idea then to start up a biotechnology company like Fibenol, it never could have come to pass, because we would have had neither the funds nor the knowhow. So it has certainly turned out to be a bit of an evolutionary process.
On the other hand, I think what Graanul Invest is doing in Estonia today is great and is necessary, because we have a lot in this wood sector that can't be used for anything.
Or no one knows what to do with it right now, at least.
Indeed, but if Fibenol enters, there will definitely be some overlap in raw materials, maybe of around 10 percent, but a large part of the raw material that Graanul Invest uses today is outside the scope of our technology.
When another company tried to build a pulp mill near Tartu five or six years ago, you were opposed, however...
I wasn't against the pulp mill itself; I had two major arguments regarding the project. One of these was that the RMK essentially wanted to sell all its pulp wood to the one company...
...who happened to be your competitor.
We were in a different sector then; they weren't our competitors as such.
I said that maybe it's not the best plan for the state – to hedge such a big bet on one group.
The other issue was its location on the banks of the Emajõgi River, which was somewhat in conflict with the City of Tartu. That seemed to me to be problematic. And I think I was right about that, to some extent. A large chunk of this anti-forest sentiment got wind in its sails as a result, but I had nothing to do with that, I can put my hand on my heart and say that.
Regrettably, you now in any case have to sup on that soup yourself
Absolutely. But those were ramifications that I couldn't foretell, and had no influence over. Let's hope things get better.

We have already talked about what the Estonian business environment represents, be it something attractive for establishing industrial enterprises or for investments in general; what the regulatory atmosphere is like, and what the taxation environment looks like. The average person will view this primarily through the lens of politicians' discussions with each other.
For a year now, there has been a huge debate going on over the state budget deficit, state revenues and expenditures, but from among the current politicians, I haven't noticed much discussion on how to generate these revenues. Mostly the talk has been on how to levy new taxes. What would you recommend to the political parties and to the government, in order to improve Estonia's economic competitiveness?
We discussed earlier what used to be Estonia's competitive advantage.
Cheap but qualified labor, natural resources, and cheap energy?
I think a very long underpinning of Estonia's development was a balanced state budget.
Politicians always have a tremendous desire to dole out money because, in the end, it makes them popular, it gets them re-elected. But to do that, the tax base needs to grow, the economy needs to grow; otherwise, the tax base won't increase.
What has happened over the last five or six years is that since we continually been in one crisis or another – Covid, the war in Ukraine etc. – the economic tax base versus state expenses have come completely dislocated.
At first, there was at least a pretense going on that "okay, to get through the crisis, we'll disconnect them for a while," but now it seems to me that they are fundamentally permanently disconnected.
All of this means that politicians can distribute funds without having to deal with the economy whatsoever. They can do so thanks to being able either to take out loans or, a more novel thing, raising taxes.
Looking at the current Estonian Riigikogu, I'd say two-thirds of it is right-wing (Kirjanen is primarily talking economically here - ed.), one-sixth somewhere in the middle, and one-sixth on the left, yet the current economic policy is clearly left-wing.
What do you mean by "two-thirds right-wing"? I couldn't quite come up with such an overwhelming majority.
Where EKRE stands on economic matters is a complex thing.
Perhaps somewhat to the left.
I wouldn't know about that.
Anyway EKRE isn't in office.
Even in the current coalition, clearly, two-thirds are on the right (Reform and Eesti 200 – ed), one-third on the left (SDE).
Nominally.
Right, but the policy is clearly left-wing. If we think about who in the government has been performing well, we would have to say the Social Democrats (SDE).
Who are clearly a left-wing party. But how then should this tax base be boosted? The state doesn't have some button to press or hold down to start generating new companies, hiking people's wages, and bolstering consumption. Or is there a button like that?
It's the same economic plan, where our economy will double in ten years – then our tax base will double.
Naturally this won't happen by itself.
The question is how to do it. We need to consider what our competitive advantages are, where the economy might grow – we have smart people already.
The geopolitics and cheap energy are gone though. Can we bring back cheap energy, and do we have any solutions or ideas? I think work is being done on this, but it seems to me that these solutions are still quite flawed or incomplete, but perhaps it's a process.
Then how can we use our bioresources more and in a smarter way?
There seem to be solutions, but to my mind, it's like being football manager and watching every game from the pub without going to the sidelines; they don't want to take a position, guide the team on what could be done better, they just watch it in the pub and wonder why the team is playing as it is today. To my mind, Estonia's economic policy is like watching from the touchlines then waiting for something to happen.
Surely something will happen; people are entrepreneurial, businessmen are by definition entrepreneurial; businesses try to find all sorts of loopholes and opportunities to get their things done more effectively.
But a major breakthrough: The doubling economic growth while watching a football match from the pub, well it won't happen that way.
Where then should this breakthrough come from? Can it even derive from the public sector any more?
It can come from the public sector if the public sector realizes that it actually has two options at hand. If it wants to distribute funds, it has the option to raise taxes, which would be extremely disproportionate, or to take economic growth as its main idea, which needs to be dealt with by everyone, and not just the Minister of Economic Affairs, but also the prime minister and the education minister. If this is taken as a goal, it's likely possible that solutions will be found.
Going back to energy prices, the energy component in wood chemistry as a fixed cost is a significant on. We've all heard stories about the wood chemistry plant in Kunda, which has been struggling for years as it came to Estonia with the expectation of electricity prices completely different from those, in terms of prices, which it has had to operate in. What kind of price forecast or view do you use in assessing the profitability of your investment in Estonia versus Latvia?
I read with interest a couple of weeks ago the presentation of an offshore wind farm project made by the Ministry of Climate, when it stated the electricity price in 2030 down to a tenth of a cent, and the renewable energy fee also to a tenth of a cent. Sorry, but I don't believe a single word of it because I don't believe that it's possible to predict like that, no matter the competence or power.
But how do you foresee electricity prices? Can it be envisaged in any way? What is the basis upon which you look and say that in two, three or 10 years, electricity will cost such and such an amount?
What is likely to be seen from this very complex long equation today is how much wind energy costs per megawatt-hour, when the wind blows, and how much the state must pay to develop that wind energy here. I think that is technically feasible, and that's the cent-per-cent number presented, but a lot is missing from that figure.
This includes where the electricity comes from, at what price, and who pays for it when the wind doesn't blow.
I can understand that the renewable energy fee remains the same proportion, which is also calculable and doable, but it seems all the services when wind doesn't blow, where the electricity comes from, emergency electricity, etc., I think all that will be ploughed into the network fee – but that's a completely different world, yet no one talks about it.
When ultimately you're a consumer, then knowing one component of your electricity bill won't save you at all, because you won't know when the next component, the network fee, will be two, three, or five times higher due to the electricity price being what is planned today.
I don't know about the bigger picture. Our understanding is that electricity prices need to come down for the environment here to become competitive. And renewable energy needs to be developed for it to come down too.
To conclude and to track back to the start of this interview, is there any possibility that you have been negotiating indirectly with the Estonian state via public statements, to the effect that maybe you will bring the factory to Estonia under certain conditions?
I'll say this much: Fibenol is not a one-factory project; I think in ten or 12 years, Fibenol will have built three to five factories.
Our clear plan and direction today is that our first factory will be in Latvia; we are seriously working towards this end in Latvia.
Could a Fibenol factory ever come to Estonia? Certainly it could, if the conditions are right.

"Reedene intervjuu" airs on Vikerraadio every Friday at 2.05 p.m.
--
Follow ERR News on Facebook and Twitter and never miss an update!
Editor: Andrew Whyte, Laura Raudnagel