“Finland is the main economic partner of Estonia, with the help of whom the Estonian economy has been able to develop and open up to the global economy over the past 26 years,” Ratas said at the meeting.

“Last year, the sales of goods and services between Estonia and Finland alone amounted to as much as 27 percent of the Estonian GDP. Last year 2.3 million visitors came from Finland to Estonia, staying overnight for more than 6 million nights. We can only imagine how many jobs are behind these numbers.”

According to Ratas, Estonia and Finland can already be considered a common economic area, but there is still more potential for development. The Estonian economic model was in transformation from a labor-intensive to capital as well as research and development-intensive activities. Its economic policy was increasingly focusing on innovation and new technologies, Ratas pointed out.

“I believe that one way to remain competitive in a global and rapidly developing economic environment is to increase cross-border cooperation, primarily between research institutions and enterprises that support the creation and sharing of knowledge. Estonia and Finland still have many unused opportunities in this field,” Ratas added.

The opportunities for economic cooperation between Finland and Estonia have been discussed for a long time, the prime minister pointed out. A lot of progress had already been made, but now was time to speed things up. “We must aim further than the X-Road or integrated digital services. We have every opportunity to develop a common investment area and mutually strengthen our competitiveness,” Ratas said.