A new Baltic think tank, the Baltic International Security Centre (BISC), was launched at an event in the Belgian capital, Brussels, on 3 June 2026, LSM reports. The UK-based centre was founded by British veteran journalist and security expert Edward Lucas. BISC’s patrons are four former Baltic presidents: Estonia’s Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Latvia’s Vaira Vike-Freiberga…
Average consumer prices for transport fuel in Latvia rose by 28.2% on year in May 2026, according to data from the Central Statistical Bureau (CSP), LSM reported. Retail prices for diesel fuel increased by 33.3%, for petrol by 21.5%, and for autogas (LPG) by 14.4% over a year. Compared to April 2026, average fuel prices…
Estonia’s industrial production output declined by 3.8% on year in April 2026, according to data from Statistics Estonia, ERR reported. Output increased by 14.3% in mining, but decreased by 14.9% in energy production and by 3.2% in manufacturing. Compared to March 2026, industrial production grew by 1.2%. Riin Kadarik, leading analyst at Statistics Estonia, noted…
Latvia’s industrial production output increased by 7.0% in April 2026, compared to the same period of 2025, according to the Central Statistical Bureau’s (CSP) calendar-adjusted data at constant prices, LSM reported. Output in manufacturing rose by 6.8% and in electricity and gas supply by 12.1%, while output in mining and quarrying fell by 8.3% over…
Estonia’s consumer price index rose by 3.7% on year in May 2026, according to Statistics Estonia, ERR reported. Consumer prices of goods rose by 3.1% and services by 4.6%. The increase in prices was influenced the most by a 10.4% rise in transport costs and 5.4% rise in housing-related costs, both driven up by higher…
Latvia’s State Treasury has raised EUR 1bn with a new bond issue on international financial markets, LSM reports. The government bonds have a maturity of seven years, carry a yield of 3.525%, and have a fixed coupon rate of 3.500%. The bonds were purchased by more than 70 investors, mostly European asset managers. Total investor…
Estonia’s harmonised index of consumer prices rose by 4% in May 2026 from a year earlier, according to Statistics Estonia’s preliminary estimate, ERR reports. Compared to April 2026, consumer prices rose by 0.9%. Lenno Uusküla, chief economist at Luminor, said that the rapid price increase was driven by higher energy and other commodity prices as…
Business sentiment in Latvia was positive in the retail and services sectors, but negative in manufacturing and construction in May 2026, according to the Central Statistical Bureau (CSP), LSM reports. The retail confidence indicator stood at 3.1%, which was up 1.5 percentage points from April 2026. In services, the seasonally adjusted confidence indicator was 1.6%,…
Estonia’s exports of services totalled nearly EUR 3.3bn in the first quarter of 2026, which was up 4% from the same period of 2025, according to data from Statistics Estonia and the Bank of Estonia. Imports of services totalled around EUR 2.5bn, which was unchanged over a year. Estonia’s trade balance in services showed a…