Nearly half (45%) of Estonians have seen their financial situation worsen in the past year, according to a Norstat poll for SEB in December 2023, BNS reports. Consumers are therefore cutting back on expenses, including by taking advantage of discounts (62%), planning purchases more carefully (49%), and eating out less often (45%). Other cost-saving measures…
Estonia’s ruling coalition has abandoned a plan to change the current renewable energy fee, which would have raised EUR 60mn annually and shifted costs from consumers to the state, ERR reported. The senior party in the coalition government, the Estonian Reform Party, rejected the plan, citing concerns about the plan’s financial viability. The changes were…
Latvia’s Ministry of Finance has outlined its provisional plan for passing the 2025 state budget, LSM reports. Under the plan, the Finance Ministry will discuss budget goals with other ministries over March 2024 and submit stability programmes for 2024-2028 to the government, the parliament, and the European Commission for approval on 30 April 2024. The…
The unadjusted gender pay gap in the Baltic States was highest in Estonia in 2022, according to Eurostat data, LSM reported. In Estonia, women’s average gross hourly wage was 21.3% lower than that of men in 2022, which was up from 20.5% in 2021. The gender pay gap stood at 17.1% (14.6%) in Latvia and…
Estonia’s GDP totalled EUR 37.7 billion at current prices in 2023, which was down 3% from 2022, according to data from Statistics Estonia, ERR reported. Robert Müürsepp, national accounts team lead at Statistics Estonia, said that Estonia’s economy was in broad-based recession in 2023, with decline recorded in most major sectors. Information and communication had…
Around 2,000 farmers protested across Latvia against the government’s agriculture policies on 5 February 2024, according to the Farmers’ Parliament (ZSA), LSM reported. Police said that the protests passed peacefully with no significant incidents, LETA reported. Farmers staged rallies with agricultural machinery in altogether 16 cities, calling for a ban on imports of Russian and…
Lithuania’s industrial production totalled EUR 35bn at current prices in 2023, the State Data Agency (VDA) reported. Compared to 2022, industrial output decreased by 5.2% at constant prices, according to calendar-adjusted data. In terms of unadjusted data, industrial production dropped by 5.3% over a year. The volume of output in manufacturing decreased by 3.7%, in…
Latvia’s industrial production declined by 4.5% in 2023 compared to 2022, according to the Central Statistical Bureau (CSP), LSM reported. Output in manufacturing decreased by 4.5%, in electricity and gas supply by 0.8%, and in mining by 19% over a year. The drop in manufacturing output was the largest annual decline since 2009. Martins Abolins, economist…
Latvia’s tax revenue totalled EUR 13.414bn in 2023, which was EUR 1.188bn (9.7%) less than in 2022, according to the Finance Ministry, LETA reports. Annual tax revenue was 2.7% more than the EUR 13.058bn planned. General government tax revenue reached 2.9% above target at EUR 12.639bn, including EUR 10.514bn of state budget revenue (2.3%) and…