Estonia’s Social Insurance Board (SKA) has cancelled child benefits for nearly 3,000 Estonian children who mostly live abroad since 2019, ERR reports. Signe Riisalo, Minister of Social Protection, pointed out that family benefits are only meant for people living in Estonia. People paying taxes in Estonia should not pay for benefits to people who do…
The Latvian government is unlikely to satisfy the Health Ministry’s request for EUR 153.3mn of additional funding for hospitals in the 2025 state budget, LSM reports. Health Minister Hosams Abu Meri said that the money was needed for human resources, medicines, infrastructure, emergency services, digitalisation, and data security. However, the government has listed external and…
Nearly half of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Estonia regard the country’s economic climate as being negative, according to a Turu-Uuringute poll for loan comparison platform Sortter, BNS reports. The survey showed that 46% of local entrepreneurs saw the economic climate as negative in August 2024. The main perceived challenges included operating costs (57%)…
Producer prices in Latvian industry declined by 2.6% in August 2024, compared to the same period of 2023, according to data from the Central Statistical Bureau (CSP), LSM reports. Prices declined by 12.7% in energy supply, 1.4% in mining and quarrying, and 0.6% in manufacturing, but increased by 5.3% in water supply and waste management….
The chairs of the European affairs committees of the parliaments of the Baltic States and Poland demanded that the EU stop importing LNG from Russia as soon as possible, LSM reported. In a joint letter, the committee chairs insisted that LNG terminals at EU ports should not be used to import gas from Russia. They…
Latvia had a total of 64,900 unemployed people in August 2024, which was 3,500 more than in the same period of 2023, according to the Central Statistical Bureau (CSP), LETA reports. Compared to July 2024, the number of unemployed rose by 100 people. Latvia’s actual unemployment rate stood at 6.8% in August 2024, which was…
Estonia’s producer price index of industrial output (PPI) rose by 1.7% in August 2024, compared to the same period of 2023, according to data from Statistics Estonia, ERR reports. Producer prices rose by on year 1.4% in manufacturing but fell by 1.9% in the production of food products. Compared to July 2024, the PPI rose…
Estonia’s central bank, the Bank of Estonia, will stop ordering one and two-cent coins as of 2025, ERR reports. Under new rounding rules, cash transactions will be rounded to the nearest five cents. Rait Roosve, head of the Bank of Estonia’s cash and payment systems department, noted that the smallest coins were seldom used for…
Lithuania is interested in the possible use of next-generation small modular reactor (SMR) nuclear technology, Energy Minister Dainius Kreivys announced, BNS reports. He suggested that such reactors could use spent and recycled fuel from Lithuania’s decommissioned Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (IAE). The minister was speaking after a meeting with the Italian nuclear technology company, newcleo….