Estonia’s central bank, the Bank of Estonia, opposes the government’s plan to replace Estonia’s self-imposed budgetary discipline rules with the EU’s less stringent budget rules, ERR reports. Ülo Kaasik, vice-president of the Bank of Estonia, insisted that changing the rules simply because of an inability to meet them was never a good idea. He warned…
Estonia’s current account deficit totalled EUR 284mn in the second quarter of 2023, according to the Bank of Estonia’s flash estimate, ERR reports. The deficit amounted to EUR 13.0mn in April 2023, to EUR 180.3mn in May 2023, and to EUR 90.7mn in June 2023. The quarterly current account deficit stood at 3% of GDP,…
The average interest rates on home loans in the Baltic States stood at 5.12% in the second quarter of 2023, which was 3 percentage points higher than in the same period of 2022, ERR reports. The average rate was the highest in 14 years. The Baltic States have the highest mortgage interest rates in the…
The number of foreign tourists visiting Estonia totalled 1,110,431 in the second quarter of 2023, which was up 19% from the same period of 2022, according to data from the Bank of Estonia, ERR reports. Foreign tourists spent a total of EUR 375mn in Estonia, which was EUR 62mn more than a year earlier. Meanwhile,…
Estonian consumers made purchases using payment cards, both home and abroad, for a total sum of around EUR 2.5bn in the second quarter of 2023, which was up 5.3% from a year earlier, according to data from the Bank of Estonia, ERR reports. Compared to the first quarter of 2023, card payments rose by 15.2%….
Inflation continues to fall in Estonia, Rasmus Kattai, economist at the Bank of Estonia, said, BNS reports. Kattai said that the drop was mostly due to the fact that prices for energy and most agricultural commodities were coming down. However, he noted that it took time for the effect of the lower prices to pass…